little vases

My journey in ceramics of the last few years has come to an exciting point this week, I've started adding my little vases to my Etsy shop. I didn't want to sell any ceramics until they were perfect in my eyes and something I wanted to share with the world.

To see my vases and buy one of your own you can go to the ceramics section of my Flowerpress Etsy Shop.

For those of you who follow my craft wanderings you will know that its been a while now since my first steps in this craft (how funny are those lumpy first pots!). I've been practicing and learning this skill since 2013, an itch I'd been wanting to scratch for ages.

The impetus was a blog story about a working ceramicist. I loved watching the process of her work and as my crafting has always been about making beautiful pieces to live with everyday, the idea of crafting my own ceramic pieces just seemed like a wonderful thing to work towards.

And it is, I love it!

What I didn't know when I started that process was that ceramics has a hugely steep learning curve. Much of it is complex and can only be learnt slowly by trial and failure. I went into it at a sprint, only to learn it is a marathon.

I like that too. I like the idea that the skills are hard won, my appreciation of ceramic work has grown so much as I explore all the processes involved.

Throwing on a wheel is hard. I'm often reminded of the idea that 10,000 hours of practice brings mastery in a skill. I'm slowly whittling away at that number, and enjoying it more as my skills increase.

It feels good to have earned a modest skill at throwing pots. It feels hard won.

home made dips - baba ganoush

Around here we love dips, we have lots of favourites which we eat with crudites, crackers and corn chips. We spread them on toast and sandwiches and add them to meals.

So the small store bought tubs don't last long and when we're entertaining they go even quicker.

All of which led me to experiment with making my own. And as I've found its quick, easy and cheap. I've been really delighted with how fast and unfussy they are to make so I thought I'd share.

I'm starting with the one I've been making most, and where the recipe I've been using seems pretty failsafe. I must have made it ten times in the last six months.

Baba ganoush is smoky eggplant in a tahini base with a squeeze of lemon to give it zing and a slight garlic tang. This is one of those home made dips that is better made than bought. And its lightning fast when you're up to speed.

Baba Ganoush

Ingredients
1 medium to large eggplant
1/4 cup tahini (abt 1 and half dessert spoons)
juice of 1/2 lemon (just less than 1/4 cup)
One garlic clove crushed or fine sliced

Method
Cook eggplant over a flame till skin burns and goes black. I have a gas burner and I sit the eggplant on the hotplate, over the naked flame, turning it until all the skin is blackened. When grilling like this I've learnt not to use half measures. A really blackenend burnt skin makes it much easier to peel and gives a better flavour.

It can be messy on the hotplate as the juices run out but its easily cleaned.

For those of you without gas ranges, I had a look online, and it seems cutting the eggplant in half and grilling (broiling) it in the oven is the way to go. Place the eggplant on a baking tray with skin side up and cook till blackened.

Leave it to sit until cool and then peel off the skin. If you've really blackened it it should come away easily. I cut away the stringy bit from the stem down about an inch and discard that too.

Once you have your eggplant flesh add it to the food processor and give it a quick blitz, then add tahini, lemon and garlic and process. It doesn't take too long and I like to leave a bit of texture.

You could tweak the lemon or tahini at this stage depending on taste.

Turn out into a bowl and eat, or chill it a bit first. Yum!

The garlic and other flavours develop over time.

Lucky for me my eggplants have started bearing these beautiful purple fruits so I will be able to trial home grown homemade baba ganoush. And as you know that's the sort of thing that makes me very happy.

2015

Each year around this time I write a post about the year just passed. I like to do a round up of all the creative work I've done during the year because I'm usually surprised at how many projects I managed to squeeze in. For someone who always feels like nothing get finished its a very satisfying to see what I have achieved.

I'm thinking that this year will be the opposite though...

Its been a strange time in many ways, a big and hard year where my creative energies were redirected into different areas.

My Dad died. That has been a huge and devastating loss and coloured my whole year.

Also this year my beautiful daughter sat her HSC which was stressful for her, but also for the family. Its a tough year for kids and a lot of my time went to helping her through it.

In 2014 we began the process of renovating, the builders did the bulk of the construction work in the last three months of that year. Last year was all about finishing the last bits, ceilings, rendering, electrics and painting. Mr F and I did all the painting work ourselves. What a trek! We also organised all the trades, and were blessed with lovely people all round.

On top of that I spent more time in my other role as financial manager of our family business. Phew, I'm exhausted just thinking about 2015!

So something had to give and it seems to have been the creative stuff.

I did do little things along the way, mostly motivated by courses I signed myself up for when I was feeling deprived or workshops I taught myself! I find courses and workshops a great way to kickstart creativity. Each time I forced myself to make a little flame ignited which got me back to a making mindset.

One big creative project I am proud of this year is reclaiming my garden. A lot of hours of work have transformed it from a devastated and compacted building site to a beautiful leafy retreat again, with a productive garden down the side and a new garden potting shed. I love it.

And most excitingly I have my own kiln and started selling small ceramics almost accidentally from my instagram account.

But more of that later. I see doing these mosaics that there is quite a lot of undocumented making. A broken camera, a full computer and those time constraints have conspired to keep me from updating my makings as I go along.

Another post I do religiously each year is a wishlist post, where I talk about what I hope to do in the next year. This year I'm planning some serious crafting. I need it in my life and with some major projects out the way I have some breathing room to start. I can't wait. Come back soon and see what I'm planning!

*

My other annual roundups: 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009 and 2008.)

bread and butter pickles

I love how seasonal produce changes the menu from month to month. This month its all about home grown cucumbers and tomatoes and the other night I made a pasta sauce with one and a salad with the other. It is so satisfying to make an entire dinner with garden pickings and it was really delicious.

Around here we've been having those cucumber salads every other night. I just peel the cucumbers, take some of the seeds out, chop roughly and then cover them with a thai style lime dressing, or a squeeze of lemon, and grind of salt and a splash of olive oil (my go-to salad dressing).

Sometimes though with a glut of fresh produce its hard to keep up and its good to find other ways to use your excess bounty.

Another way to use cucumbers is this simple preserved pickle that I made for the first time last year. I made lots of jars but we went through them quite quickly, eating them on our sandwiches and having it with cheese platters until it was all gone. Luckily this is delicious, and quick and simple to make. I made my first batch the other day and hope to get another in before Xmas.

Here's how I do it.

Bread and Butter Pickles

7 lebanese cucumbers ends removed thinly sliced
2 onions brown or spanish thinly sliced
11/2 tbsp salt

1 tbsp mustard seeds
1 tbsp coriander seeds
1 tsp turmeric
2 cups apple cider vinegar
1 cup caster sugar

I use my MagiMix to slice the cucumbers quickly, but you could use any method. I sliced them and two onions, one brown one spanish for colour. I put the whole lot in a bowl and sprinkled them the mixture with a tablespoon and a half of salt. Then I covered it with my handy beeswax kitchen cover and put them in the fridge overnight. Took me abt ten minutes for this stage.

The next day is bottling day so put the cucumber onion mix in the colander to drain, squeezing down on it occasionally to get the liquid out.

Meanwhile put a large pot on the stove and add the apple cider vinegar, mustard seeds, coriander seeds, turmeric and sugar. Heat until all the sugar dissolves.

One the mixture is clear add the cucumber mix to the pot and bring it to a simmer.

Meanwhile get your jars ready. I like to put mine through the dishwasher to sterilise them or put them covered by water in a big pot which I boil for a minimum ten minutes.

Fill the jars with cucumber pickle mix and put the lids on tight. I choose jars with metal lids that have the sealing clickable lids. I then put them in a big pot submerged in hot water and boil for 20 minutes. A lot of the recipes don't call for this but I can't fit all my jars in the fridge and I like to know they will keep. When you take the jars out that clickable seal on top should be down. It should release with a pop when you open your pickles.

Enjoy!

backyard bird count

Since moving to this street many years ago I've delighted in the open Greenway and canal that run behind us, bringing a huge range of birds into our garden and giving us a bush outlook.

So I was delighted to find the Backyard Bird Count which is running now - a nationwide public survey of birds in Australia. I'm looking forward to adding my observations to the count and sharing the range of birds who call this part of the world home.

I've downloaded the app and plan to do some surveys over the next couple of days, to record our local bird life. It takes just 20 minutes to do a survey, and you can do as many as you want. I think it will be a nice way to slow down, a chance to do something while doing nothing, a sort of mindful meditation.

I'm hoping some of our more exotic visitors plan to drop in so I can record what a truly healthy bird population lives here in the Inner West, so close to the CBD.

There is a page on the website too about bird friendly gardening, for hints to make your space even more welcoming.

Here are some photos of favourite locals who live in my neighbourhood.

plant

Spring is here at last!! I always love spring but this year I've been looking forward to it's arrival more than usual. This year I get to plant for the long term, after missing out on gardening last spring during our building work, and losing a lot of plants and landscaping in the process.

I can't wait to remake my garden with new plants and a new layout. Gardening is my meditation and my exercise. It's a creative outlet for me  and a part of my plan for a more natural and healthy life - growing and cooking my own food organically and preserving the excess, while composting our green and food waste and making a cooler, healthier environment for our house and a home and food source for local creatures

And I love doing it.

To celebrate I have shouted myself a whole heap of perennial flowering plants and seeds. And impatient to start I actually ordered a lot of the plants as bare root perennials way back in July.

You might not have gardened this way before but its worth thinking about. Many of the online nurseries I buy from are busiest in winter and spring. This is the perfect time to be putting most plants in. It gives them time to establish a root system before the stresses of hot summer days.

Also I love flowering perennials but they are are impossible to find at local nurseries. It makes me really happy that they are increasingly available to buy online. There are some great online resources for every type of plant now. I found a great Ebay seller this year and have ordered from a couple of established nurseries as well. A great resource for finding these is the Nurseries Online website.

I've also splurged on seeds, which are a much cheaper way of building up a garden. You need more patience, and some of the plants you want aren't easy to find or grow from seed, but for vegetable gardening there is no better way.

The change in season means each day more and more of my little bare plants are sending up new shoots and leaves. New spring plantings of seeds are emerging and my winter crops are hitting their stride. I can't wait to share more photos of the garden as it matures.

If you're interested to see pictures of the flowering plants I'm growing see my pinterest Plants board. And for an idea of what I'm after, a wild and thriving grass and flower garden, I love the Trolles garden in Sweden or check out my Garden board on Pinterest.

For my own records I've made a list of this year's new plants below. From past experience I know that not all of these will be happy in my garden. Some will die, some will sulk, but then others will thrive and grow and take over!

A gardener learns from their mistakes and triumphs and I have a few of both to teach me. Also plants don't live forever and if they die it just means space for new ones!

Perennials
Geum "Pink Frills'
Veronicastrum 'Pink Glow'
Geum 'Flames of Passion'
Persicaria 'Red Dragon'
Artemesia Rosenschleier
Aster 'Lady in Black'
Eupatorium Gateway
Achillea 'Salmon Beauty'
Miscanthus Gold Bar
Tulbaghia Violacea White (Society Garlic)
Filipendula Ulmaria Flore Pleno
Filipendula Rubra Magnifica
Canna 'Henry Cohn'
Sanguisorba 'Oakbank Red'
Potentilla 'Ron McBeath'
Phygelius 'Raspberry Swirl'
Physalis alkekengi
Anemone Japonica white
Anemone Japonice pink
Bergenia cordifolia
Cosmos atrosanguineus (Chocolate Cosmos)
Eryngium alpinum (Sea Holly)
Echinacea purpurea 'Magnus'
Limonium perezii (Statice)
Punica granatum nana (dwarf pomegranate)
Anthriscus sylvestris 'Ravenswing'
Astilbe simplicifolia 'Sprite'
Helenium 'Rubinzwerg'
Phlomis samia
Astrantia 'Buckland'
Francoa sonchifolia 'Dr Tom Smith'
Geranium x monacense 'Muldoon'
Leucanthemum x superbum 'Shaggy Gem' (Shasta Daisy)
Helleborus x hybridus 'Duke of Burgundy'
Pelargonium sidoides
Penstemon digitalis 'Husker's Red'
Geranium 'Stephanie'

Climbers
Actinidia kolomikta
Hydrangea petiolaris
Clematis Tangutica
Cobaea Scandens
Trachelospermum jasminoides
Parthenocissus tricuspidata
Pandorea Pandorana
Mandevilla

And this is what I'm growing from seed and seedling:

Vegies and Herbs
Rainbow chard, Spinach, Spring onions, Garland serrate leaf (salad leaf plant), Rocket,
Tatsoi, Radish Black Spanish, Radish Watermelon, Pak Choi, Lebanese cucumbers, Cucamelon, Purple Climbing Beans, Scarlet Runner Beans, Spaghetti Squash, Bull's Blood Beetroot, Broad Beans, Parsley, Artichokes, Snow Peas, Kale, Tomatoes, Strawberries, Lemon Thyme, Dill, Garlic.

Flowers
Black Ball cornflowers, Achillea Cerise Queen, Zinnia, Echinacea purpurea, Sunflowers.

rebuilding the garden

So back in September last year we started renovating our house, adding a room and deck on the back and enlarging our kitchen and dining rooms. We are still finishing the downstairs room but the bigger kitchen, the lovely open deck among the trees and the longer dining area have all been fantastic changes to our little house.

The one casualty as predicted from all this change was our garden. The extensions began with a great big hole in the ground made by a big yellow excavator which then trampled that clay soil up and down the side, over the top of my pretty little side garden.

We managed to protect all our trees, and we saved some plants by digging them up and putting them in pots. But everything else suffered through the digging and building, had piles of sand and gravel and clay plonked on top of them, bricks and lime and cement mixers emptied on to them and were compacted by machinery and a portaloo.

The garden was a battleground by the end of our renovation.

But then we had a landscaper friend come in earlier this year and restore order and install our new layout. Crushed granite steps, pavers and garden beds were put in and last of all turf was laid. This was most exciting as we'd been away and returned to instant lawn!

Here are the bones of our new garden. So neat! I can't wait to mess it up a bit!

A few weeks ago I went online and ordered some perennial plants mail order. They arrived last week and all have been tucked into the garden beds. They came bare root, which means they were winter dormant, but little shoots are coming up every day.

I've designated the side garden as the vegie patch and I have little seedlings growing in makeshift beds and pots. Its such a relief to have plants already in as spring arrives.

I'm going to write another post about the planting but wanted to share the landscaping with you and the dramatic before and after pics first.