So Good For You Coconut Slice

My knitting muse, Yvette has this awesome Coconut Treat recipe.  I was actually blown away by the party in my mouth when I tasted it.  Not only are they amazingly tasty, but they are sooo good for you. Full of coconut goodness, no refined sugar, no gluten just pure health health health.  A bit like the old party favourite Chocolate Crackles but without the hydrogenated fat or the refined sugar and with a higher fibre content.  

Not great      

Great

Yvette had rolled hers into beautiful little balls of coconut goodness but as I am a path of least resistance kind of person, I have just pressed the mix into a tin and cut up as a slice.  

Yvette's Coconut So Good Slice

3 cups shredded coconut

3/4 cup almond meal

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1/3 cup coconut oil

2 tablespoons of honey (or maple syrup if you prefer) 

Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. 

Melt coconut and honey until liquid and mix into the dry ingredients. 

When well combined pour into a paper lined tray and press to compact.

Refrigerate until set and then cut into squares.

Store in the fridge and best served cold.  

Mix all the ingredients 

Press into a tray and refrigerate

Yum 

The Bargain Maker Pencil Skirt

Mr Daddy and I recently went to Sydney - child free (I know, how awesome is that!)  While we were there we did much sight seeing and of course shopping.  We found a Trenery store, it's the mature older sibling of Country Road (because we are mature now.)   It is also more like the Country Road of the 90's, classic well cut pieces that aren't too trend dependant so you can wear them for more than one season, Wow what a concept.

I don't buy many clothes these days because A. I make quite a few things and B. I hate paying retail prices and hate being held to "what's on trend."   I did how ever love this spotty skirt in Trenery but at $120 of course I was muttering I could make that for a fraction of the price.   Mr Daddy was in a retail frenzy and said to just get it!  So I did!

The best thing is I got home, traced the pattern and made another one out of some Amy Butler I had in the stash pile.  So I figure that I now have two skirts for $120,  or $60 each that feels much better doesn't it.

Home Made Amy Butler skirt

Gorgeous Trenery Spotty Linen

I will call this skirt the Bargain Maker

Dory Shawl, They're Addictive

A few months back I finished my first crochet  Dory Shawl, (I say first because I challenge anyone to just make one.)   I use my favourite yarn, Cascade Pima Cotton in my favourite colour combo, grey and yellow. It is really quick to hook and most of the shawl is one very, very easy stitch.

However when I got the the scallop edge my pattern reading difficulties kicked in and I couldn't for the life of me work out what I was ment to do, so I made up my own edge.   I need to do a technical class in pattern reading.  I am great at the visual patterns just not the written patterns.  Anyway I still love it and I am currently hooking my third shawl.

Zauberball on The Hooks

I have found my knitting mojo.  I was really struggling to find the right project that was easy enough but inspiring enough.  Then the good people at Tangled Yarns published this Splash Cowl pattern and I just happened to have a ball of this amazing Crazy Zauberball Sock yarn, the stars were aligned.

I just love these colours and I am really enjoying the mediative effects
of just going around and around.

I am about 3/4 of the way through and will join
up the ends just before the yarn runs out. 

So I picked up another couple of balls for my next projects!  Warning - its really had to choose with Zauberball, the colours are amazing.

I think this one is called Little Fox and the one below is Lilac Flavour

Sully Monster Cake

Now my sister, Aunty L is quite the amazing cake maker.  Her Medium of choice is marzipan, and of course it is homemade.   Her first cake was the Woman's Day Echidna Cake, which she made her own with the addition of little baby echidnas. Everything is cuter with baby echindas.

The next year she just blew us away with the Organic Veggie Patch Cake.  With the left over marzipan she made this Magical Garden Cake for another family function, Wow, I know.

Magic Garden Cake of 2011

This year she asked her Mr Turning 5 what kind of cake he would like,  he wanted a monster cake and promptly whipped up this design to help her.

 This is the cake,  how cool is this Sully inspired Monster Cake...

Of course there was a matching costume for the birthday boy.  
Needless to say the cake was much admired and very yummy.  

Holiday Fun Fun Fun

I have posted before about some of the elaborate, crazy or just down right dangerous games I find my children playing.  These holidays have seen lots of lovely imaginative play and some that makes me think I need to actively supervise a little more.

There was this beautifully made Dolly bed from Miss S, complete with my pumpkin pin cushion.
Perhaps Dolly needed some acupuncture?

This game with many complex toy interactions.

Um Hummmm not sure where Master B got his garage from?

Of course we can rely on Miss M to really push the boundaries... We had a very tame Native dove in our chook pen.  Everytime Miss M went into let it out it would jump up on to her shoulder and stay on, until I made her take it off to come into the house.  I said she could put it in her avery to look after it because it might be sick or a tame one that someone is looking for.   As far as I know it has been very happy in the avery.

Then I found these photos on my phone!!!  

Do you think this is the look of a happy bird???

We have since had a long talk about animal rights.

A Skirt For Hospital

I love school holidays, by the end of each term I think I am hanging out for them more than the children.  We have had a nice quiet break that seems to have lasted for ages.  We have had some play dates, caught up with the greatest of friends and Miss S had a short trip into hospital to have her Tonsils and Adenoids removed.

Miss S told me the night before she didn't have anything to wear to hospital and that I had to make her something.  This is just the kind of challenge I love.  With a dead line that close and the happiness of a child hanging over me, I flew into action.   This is the skirt I made for her and I got so excited and inspired I made a second skirt too.  

These are the fabrics I bought back in June, I was struggling to find
the right project for them but this skirt is perfect.
 I use the same pattern/technique as the 1/2 Maxi Skirt - just on a smaller scale.

See this is why I have to hoard fabrics, ribbons and ric rac....

Here is Miss S, chillin' in the Starlight Room before the big chop-o.

This is the second skirt, its much plainer but still really cute.

 Her Op went very well, she was a bit shocked by the pain she was in afterwards and has made a slow but steady recovery.  (Whilst enjoying alot of ice cream.)