Finishing

Perhaps my motto for the year should be to finish things...

I have finished the adult kina I started late last year - I LOVE it! Such an easy easy knit! I knitted it in a gorgeous 10 ply Takhi yarns in the colour Rio. The wool is made in Peru for Takhi, an American yarn company. Since i am such a loose knitter , i knitted this 2 needle sizes below what the pattern stated - perfect think! The wool was bought at the absolutely amazing wool shop "Crafty Knitwits" in Milford, Auckland . (I suggest you take a week's wages there ... Or maybe not! I was horrified at what I spent there..................).

I will wear this all year round - thought it would be a great summer knit but YIKES the humidity has been a killer this year! We have had the most amazing summer with high temps for Auckland (no where near as bad as poor Australia and their awful bush fires !) but the humidity has knocked me! Finally bought a fan today. We do have air con in the lounge but I have loved having all the windows and doors open in the newish bedroom/ lounge etc, so have hardly turned it on.

I have knitted a bundle of dishcloths these past few weeks ( started at cricket matches!) using Rhonda Hetzel's pattern from her gorgeous "Down to Earth" book - if there is a book to buy , it is this one! I can get 3 dishcloths from 2 balls of Panda cotton at $5.90 a ball - the lovely lame green is an organic cotton from England. They make such a cheap gift! (pity I know so many people who would hate these....... ). Just need to sew in ends now.

And tomorrow I hope to finish my Miffy cross stitch bought from the Dick Bruna Miffy Museum in Utrecht in The Netherlands on our October 2011 trip.

Any plans to finish things this year?

Over the hill at Piha

We drove over the hill from Karekare to Piha to have dinner at the RSA. Great little place and a cheap meal for 5 of us. At 7pm everyone stopped eating , stood up and remembered those who had fought in many wars. It was pretty cool. We only usually go into RSAs on ANZAC Day and it is a great fundraiser for them to open for meals to visitors. It opens up another dinner venue when travelling away from home too. We had a laugh as there was an S.Atkinson on the life members board too!
Piha is a surfing destination - we were so surprised at how quiet the beach was late afternoon / early evening. Lots of baches were shut up too and the camping ground was half empty as well! Maybe everyone had gone back to work and perhaps we just missed a busy beach night? The streets were deserted - usually you have kids out and about, roaming streets, playing cricket etc...
(2 years ago at the height of the summer hols up in Northland there were plenty of motel rooms etc as well.) Virtually everyone I know is out of town away at the moment.
It was beautiful walking and driving around.

Wonder of Karekare

A few days spent (Internet and cell phone free!) at our bach at Karekare beacon Auckland's West Coast. Just a 40 minute drive from home , but another world. I wore travel sickness bracelets to try and stop the car sickness and I drove too. ( I even drove back to Henderson to go to the Knit World wool sale and spent a nice sum of money on LOTS of wool!).

Days spent at the Bach reading (Michael Morpurgo's biography - loved it!!!), finishing a pair of socks for Kieran who is delighted, knitting many many dishcloths - I love a new pattern , and starting a summer cross stitch. And watching kids read, play board games and build meccano models.

A few visit to the beach in rough surf, always swimming between the flags and also a couple of night walks.

I feel refreshed and as if I have had a good holiday!

Cheesecake

I made this cheesecake for New Years Eve - it takes 6 plus hours and in the end we ended up eating it on New Years Day and several days later too. The boys were not keen on it at all - food for parties I suggest as it was a lot of cheesecake for 2 people! But I enjoyed my breakfast for several days! It was very easy and came out perfectly! We could not find passion fruit in shops ( maybe the wrong season?) so made a strawberry topping instead.

This recipe can be found in the amazing Annabel Langbein 's "Free Range in the City."

Prep time 10 mins; cook time 1 hour 15 minutes and then sitting in fridge for 4 plus hours

Butter for greasing
500g cream cheese
500g sour cream
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla essence
Finely grated zest of half a lemon
2 tbsp lemon juice

Passion fruit topping-
Flesh of 6 passion fruit
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp blueberries


Preheat oven to 150 C. Line 23cm springform tin with paper and grease inside.
Place cream cheese, sour cream, sugar, eggs, vanilla and lemon juice and zest in food processor or electric mixer and mix until smooth.
Pour mixture into tin. Bake for 1 hour 15 minutes. Turn off oven. Leave cheesecake in oven for an hour with door open.
Chill for at least 4 hours before removing from tin.
Will keep for 4-5 days in a covered container in fridge.

To make topping mix all ingredients together and heat until simmering and very lightly thickened. Cool and refrigerate if not using at once.

Just before serving, spoon topping over cheesecake.

Enjoy! I did !!

Decorations

The decorations are coming down tomorrow. We decorated a lot more than last year , but it still wasn't a lot.
I have had this collection of nutcrackers for a few years now - a few are from USA but the vast majority are from K- Mart and Farmers - two stores in NZ. They were on our old tv cabinet in the front hallway this year - tomorrow that horrible piece of furniture will be gone and I will have an empty hallway for the first time in months! One day I would like a small hallway table. In the meantime, the hallway needs an urgent paint!
I made the Santa at a class when I was living in Melbourne back in 2002. I still adore it.
The houses are advent calendars from Phoenix stationery - they bring a new town house out every year now.
The table cloth was given to me from my grandmother - I think it was made in Hungary.
And I had 23 Christmas cards this year - hee hee. Very very few New Zealanders send or exchange cards - I love them , still post a pile out myself with my yearly letter. I love getting cards and yearly letters back in return.
I will miss the pine smell in the house.

Summer haze

The days seem to be passing in a blur. Some days I find it hard to get motivated to do anything!
I can say that the house has had a jolly good sort out and the pile for an op shop at the front door is growing.
I have also been loading stuff onto Trade Me to make a bit of pocket money. I have even opened a new bank account for me to try and save a bit of dollars this year. Last January 1st I started a piggy bank where every coin was dropped into it over the year. This will be the starter for the bank account!
And I have been doing lots of scrapbooking and hours of sorting through photos. It is fantastic to have a good sort and cull of these too and make a framework of what I would like future layouts to be. I have made a good number of pages which just now need the journalling. But I have packed it all away now to try and concentrate on other stuff.
I like to do a summer cross stitch but don't seem to have the motivation to start one as yet - instead trying to finish a sock and have started another two dish cloths.

I got some gorgeous gifts for Christmas - my favourites are pearl ear-rings and a decent phone from husband ; plus this gorgeous knitting bag which I absolutely adore from my mother in law - top gift!! ; plus my dear mum made me a pot older which I am so thrilled with too! Plus mum gave numerous sewing things like needles and quilt pins and pins etc - a good stock for me!
I also bought myself a Kikki K mug and bowl plus a beautiful cushion with Auckland volcanoes on it and a groovy kiwi made from a vintage NZ blanket. My parents have the same blanket at their house.

I am thrilled to have booked an impulse trip to Sydney in early March - my best friend from Melbourne texted me yesterday saying she missed me - awwh- and wanted a meet up in either NZ or Sydney late Feb/ early March. So I went on line and booked and yippee - a totally free flight with air points - yippee! Krispy will sort out accommodation and possibly a show - she used to live in Sydney, soi am looking forward to seeing Sydney from her view point!

Happy New Year

It is the New Year in New Zealand. A glorious sunny day. No plans as yet for the day - we have new bunks to take out to the bach (holiday home) at Karekare - one of Auckland's west coast beaches. We will be out there for several days next week - with a new 2 nd bedroom , new bathroom and new kitchen , it will be a lot more family friendly for the 5 of us. I will admit that even though it is only about a 35 minute drive, I rarely go out there as I hate the drive with its windy roads and always get carsick. I also get very very bored going to the some place for a holiday. So if we go out for a few days, I still have to go elsewhere, otherwise it is not a holiday to me. I just do not understand holidays at the same place year after year at the same time when there is a whole world to see!

I made a cheesecake last night from an Annabel Langbein cookbook. Still to make the fruit mixture to go on top. We had meant to eat it lat night , but I started scrapbooking...
I only scrapbook several times a year and then usually do 50 plus pages over 2-3 weeks. Simple scrapbooking the Creative Memories style. I like white pages at the moment. At east with the fine weather, we can eat dinner outside, so the dining room table will be mine for a few weeks. I make a huge mess when scrapping!

And the sock knitting continues too. Nice and easy to knit in summer! I have nearly finished a pair in 2-3 weeks!

Photos of the city from Devonport the other night jut before we got back on the ferry.