trying quinoa for breakfast

ok - so its been a while - but what better way to make a blogging comeback than with a healthy breakfast.
I'm taking the quinoa plunge with a power breakfast. The recipe promised me it would taste like apple strudel. I'm tasting it after grim rations yesterday (details later) and I have to say it is yummo!

http://www.thehealthychef.com/2012/02/quinoa-power-porridge/

Serves 2
1 cup (milk) your choice of seed, dairy, soy or  almond milk
1 cup water
1/2  cup  quinoa (see note)
2 apples, chopped or grated with skin
½  teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon ground linseed (flaxseed) or LSA (linseed, sunflower seed, almonds)
Rinse quinoa under cold running water.
Combine with the water in a pot and bring to the boil.
Reduce the heat – cover and cook for 10 minutes until soft.
Add milk, apple, cinnamon, seeds and vanilla.
Cook for 5 minutes until creamy – add more milk if needed for a creamier texture.
Spoon into serving bowls and enjoy.
Serving Tip: Top with a little extra fruit like sliced banana or use fresh or dried figs or prunes.
Nutrition per serve made with low fat milk
Protein: 8.3 g
Carbs: 38 g
Total fat: 3.2 g
Saturated: 0.1 g
Fiber: 6.2 g
Kilojoules: 862
Calories: 195

 

Thank you healthy chef -  I now have some wonderful recipes to inspire me on my quest!

latest projects

I spend a lot of time thinking about about making things.
Some of them even get finished.

 Blue series #1 with some shibori cushions.

 Blue series #2 with my hand screened deer cushion.

The blue series of recycled knitwear blankets was inspired by my recent venture into the world of indigo shibori dyeing.

I had to use up all the knitwear squares - so I  whipped up another blanket.  I have chopped up so many jumpers there is fluff over everything.
I'm also a little bit obsessed with blanket stitch. I just love the order of it.

I craft therefore I am

I have leapt from one crafty project to another over the last few months. My underlying interest came from  10 fabric printing tutorials in this link from Babble.
 It has inspired me to investigate as many fabric printing and dyeing methods as I can and then use my favourites in some home furnishing and clothes.

In my quest so far I have explored screen printing, rubber stamp carving and printing, and shibori fabric dyeing. 

But all this has not distracted me from my recycled knitwear projects. I have been lucky to receive bundles of jumpers from Jenny and Jo recently - so a shout out to my thrifting friends.

The pom pom blanket is my latest sustainable sewing project. It is made from only the softest old knitwear. I warm wash the jumpers to slightly felt them and then cut them into squares, sew them together, blanket stitch the edge and add some labour intensive giant pom poms. Great fun!

 Aren't giant pom poms just delicious?

I can hear you wondering - how do you make pom poms this big?
Well... buy some very chunky wool. Wind it around your four fingers (held in the salute position) about 30 times, slide it off your fingers and place the bundle on a 20cm length of the wool, tie it up around the middle, snip the loops at either end,  leaving your tie ends long. Trim with scissors into a perfect ball shape. Then grab a wire brush to tease the fibres out a bit to achieve the fuzzy ball of pom pom goodness we all know and love.
There is a great pom pom tutorial here.

And maybe you are wondering how to make this recycled jumper blanket - well have a look at my tutorial here.

Leave me a comment if you like.... I'd love to hear from you.

The next exciting adventure - shibori

My fabric printing adventures continued this weekend with a shibori class at Harvest Textiles in Melbourne town. 

We used the traditional indigo dye with different blocks for the resist - string, children's stacking blocks, clamps and even split peas. Much fun was had and by the look of our finger nails it appeared we had cyanosis by the end of the class. 

Show and tell...

 

A sunny day in wintery Melbourne was perfect for drying our samplers and warming us up over lunch. It was quite surreal to sit  at the lunch table chatting about life with our indigo and white fabrics strung like a Japanese market all around us.

  

print, print, print

I love hand printed fabric and paper. So I'm on a quest to try different print methods and maybe combine a few techniques in one fabric to make some soft loose pants or homeware items. 

My latest venture is carving rubber stamps to use with textile dyes or ink pads for paper.  The possibilities are endless so for my first effort I have focused on traditional Indian shapes for inspiration.
I used a block of Ezy carve rubber, Speedball lino cut tool, an Exacto knife, Archival ink pad, some old corks, uhu glue and the usual 2B pencil, paper and ruler.



 I drew my design on a 2.5 cm cross grid for the small stamp and a 5cm grid for the lare stamp. Then  placed the rubber block over my design and pressed it firmly so the design would transfer to the block. Then I cut around the shape with the exacto knife and carved out the background with the lino carver.

 I found some old corks in the kitchen cupboard ( who me?? a hoarder??) and stuck my stamp to the cork so that it is easier to handle.

 I'm playing around with ideas for my signature- to put on my screen prints and hand stamped gift cards and papers.

This is my test paper and even though it looks a bit rough I quite like the imperfect effect. I am going to try using my screen printing ink to do a run of stamping on fabric - fun, fun, fun.

getting my craft on

Even in today's pouring rain I have been down in my studio ( no longer a shed) screen printing, spraying my screens clean outside and screening again - rinse and repeat!

We went to our class at Harvest Textiles last week and I have been just a little bit obsessed with it. Fun times.
I have whipped up a few cushions to put my fabrics to good use. I think cushions are going to take over my house.

screening mad

I'm thrilled to bits to be doing a screen printing workshop at Harvest Textiles next weekend. The Harvest Workroom is where all the action is and I hope to learn the ropes in one big session.

I'm so excited I'm literally incapable of looking at the paints and implements I bought online to have a play with.  I thought I might do some colour tests and some drawings to see what shapes I like. Nup! Nothing hapening! So I will go to my class like an open book, ready to be  inspired by the lovely folk at Harvest.

I have bought some  linen fabrics to print my design onto. I hope to make some tea towels out of it.

I have also got more linen like fabric to print on and if that works out I will make cushions out of it. You can never have too many cushions - Right?

I've been scouting around the internet for images of animals to draw in silhouette. I'd like to make a screen print over another print - the oh so lovely chevron. Can't beat a good chevron. 

minted.com

I can see a zebra head or a deer superimposed over the chevron.

mmm I can see I'm going to be a blithering wreck by the time I do this class. I hope the instructors take me firmly by the hand and tell me to focus!

A few other random shapes to draw -definitely the pineapple, antlers, cockatoo...

There's just something about the good old cocky that says go ahead, make my day. So I think a tote bag with this outline and the cocky comb printed in an unlikely colour could work. 

 I'm going to stop now.

The End