Skywhale

Warning: ridiculously picture-heavy post! Also, giant inflatable whale boobs.

Artist Patricia Piccinini's Skywhale came to the Adelaide Botanic Gardens for the Adelaide Festival - it was about a month ago now and I'm only just getting around to posting about this beautiful day.

The Skywhale was a massive, gorgeous, peaceful presence and the weather seemed to embrace her with mild sun and stillness. When we could tear ourselves away from the giant air-mammal, we set off to explore the new wetlands that have been built in a reclaimed piece of land right next to the gardens. Here, stormwater is being collected and filtered and stored as a resource to supply the water needs of the gardens; it is hoped that within a few years, it will be enough to water the whole gardens.

These are the kinds of things that make me hopeful for my children's future. Heaven knows there's enough to feel sad and angry about in our country right now. Sorry to wax political. I Marched in March. But I want to keep my eyes, and my heart, on the positive things, too.

Hmm... that ended up being a bit more than pretty pictures and hot-air boobies, didn't it?

- Jane x

New year, new ironing board cover

As they say in the classics.

The truly shameful thing is how long I procrastinated about this job. Visual evidence below.

The old cover. In some great barkcloth that I got from... somewhere... and had my Mum stitch up into this cover. That's how long ago it was made: before I got seriously into sewing and still asked my Mum to whip up things like this. It's a minimum of six years old and in vintage fabric, it started disintegrating a while back. A fair while back, cough cough.
The new cover is just the shape of the top of the ironing board, traced with about 10cm added all around, edges overlocked and turned and sewn down to make a channel for 1/2" elastic. The sewing is really slapdash, because it's all under an ironing board, possibly the least interesting place in the world for anyone to ever look. And the top looks all smooth and lovely!

The fabric is just a quilting cotton from my stash so I'm not counting on it lasting forever. But maybe, having done it once, I will make a fresh one sooner next time.
I rewarded myself with a slice of this hazelnut cake I made yesterday:

Recipe here - I followed it exactly, using un-roasted nuts with their skins on, and then added sliced fresh strawberries in the centre along with the cream. Could go even more strawberries next time, and considerably shorter cooking time or lower heat in our oven, since it was slightly overcooked by about 45 minutes. Very light and delicious and not over-sweet, and really very simple. I would recommend this to impress a bunch of guests (or just scoff as a hungry family).

Now, I'm off to iron a bunch of stuff.

No, not really.

- Jane x