The Alphabet Club - Detention for Letter "D"

"They only met online, but it changed their lives forever"

Today is the first Saturday in November.... 

which means today is posting day for

"The Alphabet Club" (TAC)

Here we are again... another Detention Saturday!  All these monthly milestones are showing just how quickly this year is flying by.  Are you ready for some more Aussie slang words and phrases?  As usual there are probably some which you know from other countries but hopefully there are some new ones in the list below that will make you smile.. ;o)

So here we go..... the letter "D":
Dag: a funny person, nerd, goof
Daks: trousers
Darwin stubby: 2 litre bottle of beer
Dead horse: Tomato sauce
Deadly treadly: a bicycle (push-bike)
Deadset: true, the truth
Dero: tramp, hobo, homeless person (from "derelict")
Digger: an Aussie soldier
Dill: an idiot
Dinkum or fair dinkum: true, real, genuine ("I'm a dinkum Aussie"; "is he fair dinkum?")
Dinky-di: the real thing, genuine
Do your lolly (mellon; nana; loaf): to get very angry
Don't get your knickers in a knot (or a twist): Don't get so upset about things (or something)
Doovalacky: used whenever you can't remember what something is called (we have other words for this problem as well - more on them another day!)
Down Under: Australia and New Zealand
Drongo: a dope, stupid person
Dummy, spit the: get very upset at something
Dunny: outside toilet

Australian Damper: Damper is traditionally a simple Australian unleavened bread baked in the hot coals of a camp fire. (The modern recipe below is not unleavened because it uses self-raising flour.)  The traditional way to cook damper was to wrap the dough around a stick and it was then cooked over the ashes or put into an iron pot and buried in the hot coals.  You could then put jam or something into the hole once it's cooked.  It is generally believed that the bread is called Damper because the fire is damped to allow the bread to be cooked over the ash covered hot coals, and as the recipe was passed on the drovers used to always remind people to dampen the fire to cook it...

Recipe: Modern version to bake in the oven or try while camping
Ingredients
450 grams (3 cups) flour, self-raising
¼ teaspoon salt
180 ml (6 fl oz) milk - if the mixture is too dry, add a little more milk
1 teaspoon sugar, caster (sugar, granulated)
80 grams (1/3 cup) butter, chilled
 extra flour as needed

Method
1. Mix the flour, salt and sugar together into a bowl.
2. Rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips until it looks like fine breadcrumbs.
3. Add milk slowly and mix to form a soft dough.
4. Knead lightly on a floured board until smooth. Shape into a round loaf, brush with milk and cut a cross in the top surface of the dough.
For oven cooking
5. Grease and dust with flour a round cake tin. You can substitute a flat baking pan, but the round tin gives a better shape to the loaf.
6. Place dough in the pan and bake in a preheated oven at 190° C (375° F) for 30 - 40 minutes.
For camp fire cooking
5. Grease the camp oven (Dutch oven) and dust with flour. Add bread dough and cover.
6. Place in your camp fire, cover with hot ashes and coals and bake for about 30 minutes.

Note: to test if it's done, tap on the loaf and it should sound hollow. Cut into moderately thick slices and serve while still warm. Top with butter, golden syrup, or your favourite jam.

Variations: You can add a variety of ingredients to Damper for a different flavour. For example, add desiccated coconut, cinnamon, sultanas and extra sugar for a sweeter Damper.

So that's it for the "D" words..... now it's onto my TAC stitching (or lack there of!!)

Last month on my TAC post  I showed you where I was at with my "B" Kitty, and then a few days later I showed you a pic of a bit more progress.... well, I am sorry to say not much more has been done on the Kitties until this week when I finally managed to start on the "C" Kitty.  This is what my afghan currently looks like:

"ABC" Chats - Les Brodeuses Parisiennes
as at 7 Nov 2015

I just adore these kitties and I really should spend more time on them.... but as is the case with most stitchers I have too many things on the go at once and not enough hours in the day.... and then I keep finding more designs that I just have to start stitching... a never ending spiral!!

If you would like to join in the fun of "The Alphabet Club", pop over to Chiara's blog (The Grey Tail) to see what all the fun is about and link up your post for the Letter "D".

I think I have bored you all enough for now... so I will sign off and come back again tomorrow with a bit of a stitching update on what else I have been stitching over the last week or so.

Cheerio for now!
Hugs xx

Happy Halloween!!

Happy Halloween
web image

Boo!!

Yep, today is Halloween.... and while we don't really celebrate Halloween here in Australia as much as other countries it has certainly started to gain some popularity recently.... and I am more than happy to jump on the bandwagon!!

Today's post is two-fold - firstly I will show you my Friday Frolics stitching from last night and then it's onto my Halloween bit....

As you would have read on previous posts, Friday Night is all about frolicing around with our WIP's and then posting what we have stitched on the "Friday Frolics" blog which is hosted by Kaye (Kitten Stitching).

Last night I stitched on my Margaret Sherry Christmas Mouse.... Mouse number 3!  Yes, you're right that means number 2 is finished :o) (will show you a pic shortly of the finished mouse #2)

So when I started stitching on Mouse #3 last night he looked like this:

Before Friday night's stitching

and after some stitching last night he now looks like this:

After Friday night's stitching

I am now on the backstitching of this design so fingers crossed I will get it finished sometime today (or early tomorrow morning while watching the Wallabies game!!)

As I mentioned earlier I finished Christmas Mouse #2 this week,

MS Christmas Mouse #2 - Designer Margaret Sherry

Isn't it amazing what you can achieve when you focus on one thing at a time!

My Meerkats all dressed up in their Halloween Finery!!

Now who's ready for a Halloween Blog Hop?  Yep, you got it right - it's time for Serendipitous Jo's Annual Halloween Blog Hop......

Each year Jo asks all the participants to show a picture of something Halloween related that they have stitched and she also sends us a Letter for a the mystery phrase - so now you need to write down my letter.... and then click on the link below to go to the next blog on the hop.  If you get lost head back to Jo's blog and she will have all the blogs playing along listed in order so you can make sure that you are on the right track!

 Now for the reveal... my letter is:

(web image)

Rather appropriate for someone who's name starts with an "L", don't you think?

I love Halloween stitching because it generally incorporates my two favourite colours - orange and purple together!!  Over the last couple of years I have stitched one or two pieces for the Halloween SAL Blog and while I have a couple of favourites I have to show you my absolute favourite Halloween stitch so far....

Margaret Sherry Halloween Kitty

I stitched this kitty a couple of years ago for an exchange... it is a Margaret Sherry design (no surprise there!) and I added the bat border before making it into a pillow backed by the halloween fabric that you can almost see in the background of the photo.  Original post about the exchange is linked here

So, now that you have finished with my part of the Halloween Blog Hop it's time for you to fly over to the next blog on the hop.... say hi to Lenore at Needle, Pen and Sword for me....

Well that's it from me for today....

Hope you have a great Halloween, stay safe and happy stitching

Hugs xx

Go the Wallabies!!! Good luck boys in your campaign to bring home the Webb Ellis Cup

Angelic Weekend Stitching

Well hello to another Monday!

I have a little bit of stitching to show today... and both pieces are almost finished!

So first up we have my Friday night stitching which I will also post over on the "Friday Frolics" blog shortly.

This time around I didn't stitch on an old WIP.... I decided to stitch on my October piece for the Christmas Ornie SAL as this month is rapidly drawing to a close and I haven't done my angel or nativity piece yet.

I actually started this new design on Thursday evening, so when Friday came around the Angel looked like this:

Before FF stitching

After stitching on Friday night, the Angel looked like this:

After FF stitching

and seeing as I need to finish her by the end of the week, I continued stitching on Saturday and Sunday on her as well... she now looks like this:

as at Sunday 25 Oct 2015

I know she looks a bit weird at the moment..... I have to find (order) the colour for her hair and locate some more of the colour of the shading around her wings, so I stitched what I could and then started backstitching the lower section.  I am not stitching the bottom of the dress as I need to keep this as a small design (further details on why later...).  You will probably notice that I changed the word "Joy" and stitched it in gold Kreinik.  I have also embellished her sleeve and head dress with green Kreinik just to bling it up a bit!!

For those of you that might like to know where this design came from.... she can be found in a very old Cross Stitch Christmas magazine (1999) - design is called "Joyful Angels Triptych" and is designed by Mona Eno.  I am stitching her on a piece of "Waratah" 32 count fabric from Stitches and Spice.

Once I had gone as far as I could on my Angel yesterday, I decided to pull out my little MS Xmas mouse again and pop a couple more stitches in him.

The last time I showed you the MS Xmas mouse #2 he looked like this:

now he looks like this - main stitching is now finished and backstitch has begun:

That's it for another weekend stitching round up.  See you all again soon!

Til next time, happy stitching
Hugs xx

FF, FNSI & IHSW Round Up

It's Monday.... and time for a weekend stitching round up post!

First up is Friday Frolics.... nothing to report as nothing was stitched on Friday :o(  Epic fail....   We were out on Friday night and by the time we got home it was a bit too late to even think about threading a needle for a few stitches....

And of course you know what that means don't you??  Double epic fail!

Friday night was also FNSI and while I did sign up for this and I was hoping to be home in time to stitch with everyone... it just didn't happen! :o( :o(

But I am an optimist and I also look for that silver lining.... last weekend was also IHSW and I did manage to stitch most of the weekend!!  Having a cold, damp Spring Sunday helped immensely!

Joyce didn't post a sign up page last week.... but I didn't let that deter me.... want to see what I stitched on Saturday and Sunday?

Saturday saw me rummage around in the Stitching Box and come up with "Halloween Sneak Peek" by The Trilogy, which was good timing as I needed to stitch and post my "ghost" on the Halloween Ornie SAL Blog before the end of the month.... indeed before Halloween which falls at the end of the month!!!

I am really pleased with my weekend stitching progress... because not only did I start and finish the Ghost square... but I also started and nearly finished the Jack (pumpkin) square!  (If the Argentina/Ireland Rugby game had gone another half hour I would have probably finished that one as well!!!)

So first up... here is the "Ghost" square

"Halloween Sneak Peek" designed by The Trilogy

After a weekend of stitching on the Ghost and the Jack, the whole piece now looks like this:

"Halloween Sneak Peek" designed by The Trilogy
as at Oct 2015

Not bad progress for Saturday and Sunday, even if I do say so myself!!  I have only one more square (the witch) to stitch on this one and then back onto the border.....  Before I post my Ghost on the Halloween blog I need to do some Halloween decorating... have no idea what I am going to do but I think a trip to Spotlight is called for, or maybe I should just take a photo of the cobwebs and big black spiders that we have hanging around on the back patio and use them as my decorating!!!

I am going to put this one away now so that I can start on my Christmas Ornie SAL Blog piece for October.  Hopefully I will have something to show you all next week....

Til next time, happy stitching!
Hugs, xx

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL 2015 - Update #10

Yeah.... I did it! I am on time for my October GG post!

For this month's GG post I decided to devote some stitching time and love to one of my longer neglected pieces....

Moutons de Saisons "Printemps et ete" - Collection Tralala
Gift from Kaye from Kitten Stitching.  The original post of when Kaye gave me these charts is here.

Tralala Collection - Mouton de Saisons

Moutons de Saisons "printemps"
The last time you saw, and I stitched on "printemps" was back in July .... I left my sweet little sheep and his/her rabbit friend looking like this:

Are you ready for the latest reveal of "primtemps"?  Prepare to be almost amazed...

I am so pleased with my progress on this one....  sitting on my backside all weekend and every evening after tea is starting to pay off in stitching progress!  I am almost finished the main part of the design, and then I will be onto the bottom part and the border, and who knows we may even have a finish before the end of the year!

Tonight I will do a bit more on this one, but then alas he will have to go back into the stitching basket as the month is half way through I haven't even started my Halloween Ghost or Christmas Angel/Nativity...

That is unfortunately all I have to show for this GG post.... see you next month!  Don't forget to visit Jo's blog for the link ups to see what everyone else worked on this month!

Til next time, happy stitching
Hugs xx 

If you're not sure what this particular SAL is all about.... Jo from Serendipitous Stitching hosts this SAL - the link to my post late last year about the SAL is here.... but essentially this SAL is about stitching charts/kits or using fabrics & threads that we have received as gifts, won in giveaways or anything that is intended be a gift or giveaway prize... or anything else that you can loosely use the word "gift" for!!  If you wish to sign up for this SAL, click on the button below or the button on my sidebar and you will be re-directed to Jo's blog.