The first of many December birthdays has begun with the celebration of my niece’s 1st birthday yesterday!
Truly, my family and I cannot believe just how fast the year has flown by since that very special day she was born! It seems like only yesterday (weird concept as yesterday was her actual birthday), we heard about the amazing start she had in life – born early in the morning in the family car on the way to the hospital! (She sure knew how to make an entrance!) Then later that evening seeing her, my brother and sister-in-law along with her four big brothers on the 6pm News, where her adventurous start in life was reported to the nation! Gotta admit, it was a pretty awesome day in the lives of the Rolfe family (and extended family too!) and such a wonderful way to start the Christmas season off! 🙂
And now here she is, the big ONE, almost walking and taking in everything that life seems to bring – especially chocolate cake! (Good choice, my darling!)
Last night, as you may know, I took a trip into the city to see Anything Goes at the Sydney Opera House!
The show, one I’d never seen before, was fantastic! The music was wonderfully jazzy and melodic, the story line funny and engaging and the dance numbers were absolutely first class! It was really great and a perfect birthday treat from my parents!
And of course, while I was in the heart of my beautiful city, I captured some photos for you of the Opera House, the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the sparking harbour surrounding them!
+++
Today has been a busy editing day, getting the Mountain Block tutorial polished and all shiny ready to upload for you in the next few days! I am sorry that it is a little later than usual, the past few days have thrown my schedule all out of whack!
I hope you’re all having a splendid weekend and are pursuing all of your quilty plans and dreams!
I spent the day rugged up at home (my favourite place) joyfully playing with my youngest nephew and niece! We sung songs, played with balloons, ate doughnuts and built Duplo towers!
Amelia: ‘Auntie, what is that big thing you’re shoving in my face?’ (I took the picture using my big DSLR camera!)Oh, those big brown eyes and pouty lips!! Too cute!Xavier singing his ABC’s!Doughnut time!
More of my family came over this evening where we had our traditional party tea, with homemade chocolate cake, lollies, Chocolate Crackles* and yummy fresh fruit!
And because I work from home (which means that technically I’m my own boss) I gave myself the day off! I do feel slightly bad that I did, as it means that Friday’s tutorial has now been pushed back a day or two! Sorry! But today’s little breather from everything has really helped clear my head and get a few things back into perspective!
Although, I do have one very exciting thing to tell you about! Last night I finalised everything for my next Quilt-Along Series!!! Yay! It’ll be a HST Sampler, made up of nine different blocks, all at different levels of difficulty and layout. This time around I’ll be using a beautiful fabric collection from RJR Fabrics that has some of the most loveliest colours and patterns that I’ve seen in quite a while! As soon as I saw it, I knew it was the perfect one to use for the quilt! I’ll announce what the range is and the whole story behind it once I receive it! Eek!! (Although, some of you might be able to figure it out with some of the clues in the picture below!)
Here’s a sneak peak of the blocks we’ll doing…
I guess this also gives a little insight into how I design and work out all the maths for my quilts! I must always draw them out and colour them in to be able to get a true understanding and visualisation of the block/quilt I want to make! At the moment, I don’t have a date for when this will begin, but know that it’ll be very soon! (Like ‘weeks’ soon!)
I hope your day was as lovely as mine!
xx
*PS. Curious to know what Chocolate Crackles are?? Here’s the recipe if you would like to try them! Every Aussie kid has been brought up eating these, especially at birthday parties, cake stalls, picnics and as special treats!
Chocolate Crackles
Ingredients:
4 cups of Rice Bubbles
1 cup of desiccated coconut
1 cup of icing sugar (powdered sugar)
250g of Copha (a type of vegetable fat made from coconut oil)
3 tablespoons of cocoa
To make:
First, slowly melt the Copha in a saucepan over a low heat.
Meanwhile, mix together the rice bubbles, icing sugar, coconut and cocoa in a large bowl.
Carefully pour the melted Copha into the rice bubble mixture and stir until well combined.
Spoon the mixture into a cupcake tray filled with paper cases and place in the fridge until set.
This afternoon I went out into the beautiful Spring sunshine and took some lovely photos of the blooming Wisteria trailing along our side fence! It has bloomed so insanely quick! It seems like only yesterday it looked like dead twisty branches trying to eat our fence!
Wisteria vines/bushes would have to be one of my favourite garden flowers ever! The scent, the colour, the delicate little blossoms, the bright green leaves along with it’s dramatically soft vertical hang! Oh, so pretty! What made it all look so romantic today was the brilliant blue sky that quietly hung in the background! All of these delightful Spring colours coming together simply made my heart so so happy!
After our lovely day visiting the Mt Tomah Botanical Gardens last week, I’ve totally fallen in love with taking photographs of flowers and nature, showcasing their beauty, colour, structure and uniqueness at the moment! Today I was also quite lucky to capture a few bees doing their loyal duties to their Queen and Hive! The flowers were almost swarming with them which made me feel very uneasy, as I have a slight fear of bees! (I’ll explain the dramatic and ever-so-scaring story another time!)
I hope you enjoy these photos just as much I do!
Happy Wednesday, Friends!
xx
PS. How beautiful would these colours be in a quilt!!? Especially that last one! So gorgeous!
Today in Australia we celebrate Father’s Day! The picture below was taken on Friday with my dad amongst his children and my oldest brother with his children.
My Family!
To celebrate the day, in the afternoon my folks and I took a lovely leisurely drive up the Blue Mountains and visited the Mt Tomah Botanic Gardens nestled amongst the misty mountain ranges. Things were slightly damp, a little drizzly and chilly but the scenery and fresh mountain air were absolutely beautiful!
While there I also took the opportunity to snap some stunning pictures of the native flowers for the blog! I hope you enjoy seeing some of the beautiful flora we have here in Australia!
It was such a lovely sight to see all of the fresh flowers budding and coming to life. There were so many colours, textures and patterns that caught my eye every which way I turned! I’m so happy that Spring has finally made its way back to us!
3and3quarters 