Some walks and some things which are lovely...

The Mr. and I went to Pulau Ubin, an island just off the shore of Singapore.  We didn't see a lot of wildlife because it was around noon when we went and all the birds and animals were having their midday nap. This beautiful Kingfisher and his mate were calling to each other though and considering little Crabs and Mud Skippers for lunch.

Two large-ish Mudskippers enjoying the mud (fishy shapes below the piece of metal!).

In the centre of this picture is a bluish blur. This blur is a beautiful blue/green metallic pigeon, probably an Emerald Pigeon. An extraordinary sight. Unfortunately I was not fast enough with the camera! You just need to know if was quite possibly the most lovely pigeon I've ever seen.

This little Zebra Dove was wandering around with 3 friends at the carpark at my work. I only got one picture before he got scared and flew off. Zebra Doves are really small, I imagine you could comfortably fit one in your hand...not that they would appreciate that!

Quite a perfect mushroom/toadstool specimen seen on another walk. 

The dangers of walking in the tropics!

The weather this past week or two has been nice and cool and rainy. In this weather, the hills behind take on mist as if they are distant mountains.

And then we get this! Perfect blue skies are rare for Singapore, but one morning I woke up to this sight. Even the airplane trail looks lovely!

Having plants inside the kitchen seems to be attracting ladybugs. This is the first of two spotted last week. They are so tiny and beautifully spotted. Its very reassuring that such beautiful bugs would like to hang out at my kitchen. It must be an alright place to be!

Some birdies

This is the Asian Glossy Starling. Not a view you normally get unless you happen to spot one on a tree branch above you or like this one, on a lightning conductor above you. This one is a juvenile as evidenced by his pale underside and nice speckley pattern on his throat. Hanging onto the lightening conductor looked tricky and he didn't stay for long.

Every evening on the block next to mine the birds gather to say goodnight. I like to see how many can fit on the aerials. Latecomers have to go on the next block as the early birds get the good seats!

This Brahminy Kite likes to hang around near my place circling around and around. He is quite magnificent to watch though I always worry for all the other birds around!

Pretty Colours

These are all the colours I've developed over the last few months.

Left to Right: 

Tumeric/Tea/Red Cabbage

Portobello Mushroom

Red Cabbage (acidic)

Red Cabbage (neutral)

Red Cabbage (alkaline)

Black Beans (neutral)

Black Beans (alkaline)

Copper (diluted)

Copper (strong)

Copper (very strong with vinegar)

Now I have the colour and they seem to be relatively stable over several months its onto whole skeins! Then I take over the world!

Ignore Everything and Look at Pretty Yarn

Isn't this the most lovely thing you have seen?

I finally made a 'natural' green dye for yarn.

Its magnificent.

Its a celery green colour. Quite vegetal.

I made it from copper, vinegar and lots of time (about 3 months). I'm not sure what the chemical name is for this but I think its Copper Acetate. Not sure if its poisonous, so I wore gloves and rinsed the yarn very well.

The dye is actually a blue green colour but this skein is under-dyed with black tea and so was yellowish. Thus mixing blueish and yellowish I made green.

This is the copper wire soaking in vinegar about 2 months in. You can see the bright blue colour of the vinegar below and the crystals forming on the wire.

This is the copper wire after I took it out after 3 months. After this stage I soaked the wire in a little water to remove the blue from the wire. Worked really nicely.

On the left is yarn that was not under-dyed with anything, its just a natural wool colour. The finished yarn colour is much closer to blue than green.

This was my first experiment with wool in a tiny amount of the blue liquid that showed me that the colour would stick and might produce greens or blues. 

Happiness.

A little garden

 I brought some beans at the supermarket. I thought I'd have a go at sprouting them. I placed 6 on damp paper towel and waited. First one sprouted, then another. Then nothing! The other four didn't spout at all after 2 weeks. Then the second one stopped growing and the first one took off like a rocket. I think it must have been watching the Olympics!

After a few short days of growing roots, it started to spout up. In one day alone it grew about 2 inches!

It grew so fast I had to rush out and buy some potting mix for it. It now has a nice view out the window and is stretching towards the sunshine. Today it grew about an inch and in the last 2 days it has sprouted three new leaves. I don't know if it will ever grow beans but its so fun to watch that I don't mind. Its so satisfying to see things grow. Its also kinda magical that things grow at all, all I did was add water! By the way, his name is Bean.

One of my colleagues was slowly killing this nice Staghorn Fern so I took it home. Since I took it home and nursed it back to health its grown 7 new leaves and is looking decidedly perky. I've named him Planty in honour of My Milk Toof's pet plant. Sadly, some little bugs are eating the dry bits of Planty, so I have to spray him with some organic pest-killer (hope it doesn't hurt him!).

While I was at the nursery getting soil for Bean, we brought 3 other plants: A basil, a rosemary and a chilli padi. So now we have a little garden. So far we are calling them Bas, Rose and Paddy, not very original, but I think they should have names.

 So far they look happy. I'm planning on putting some of them in a pie soon! (But don't tell them, they might get scared!). They smell soooo good!

Inspired by Hermine's avocado growing adventures I decided to try my own. Out of 5 that I had in water, so far one has leaves. Three didn't make it after 3 months so I was left with two. The first one sprouted but has been growing very very slowly. The second one has grown roots and is now busy making leaves. I've got another pot ready for him once he grows a little taller. His name is Avi (short for Avicenna, after the philosopher). The other one is called Ave (short for Averroes).

Pies (and some bread)

Since what I can eat has been fairly limited, I've been experimenting with cooking more. I was craving a nice pie so I did some searching and testing and came up with a passable wheat & egg-free shortcrust pastry.

The first experiment was a sweet pumpkin pie. This one was so good it disappeared in about 3 days. The filling is pumpkin, cinnamon, coconut milk and condensed milk. 

 Then I thought I'd try a dark chocolate pie. This one has about 200g of melted 70% dark chocolate and 300ml of whipped cream. I used the skills I learnt while watching Emmanuel Mollois on Poh's Kitchen to ensure I didn't melt the cream with the hot chocolate. Specifically I was inspired by this beauty of chocolate goodness. I didn't add any sugar to the filling so you really taste the bitter dark chocolate instead of sugar. That way you can eat a larger slice!

I tried making 100% rye bread. It tasted great but my stomach didn't like it. Though I really enjoyed making bread. I used Yoke Mardewi's book for instructions (though I didn't make sourdough) and adapted them for 100% rye. I hope to make a bread that my stomach likes one day. I really miss bread. Grilled cheese sandwiches are just so nice!

I adapted my shortcrust pastry to use as a base for a cheesecake. I added 1/3 almond meal to give the base some texture as I think cheesecake bases are good with texture. The filling is cream cheese, cream, lemon juice, blueberries and about 1/3 cup of icing sugar. This really was delicious!

I've been dreaming of more pie fillings every since I made the first pie. I want to try a savoury pie next. Something with cheese and spinach perhaps...

Sew what?

This is the first time I've sewed so much in my entire life. Sewing has become a respite from feeling sick and is a practical solution to the fact that my clothes no longer fit me. Also the more I sew the more enjoyable I find it. I've learnt alot of things about sewing over the past few months.

The first lesson is patience. Read the pattern carefully, prewash fabric well, layout fabric and pin carefully then test stitches. I'm usually one for jumping in with making and hoping for the best, however I'm learning that unpicking seams is not fun so if you are more careful, you actually save both time and heartache.

The second lesson has been understanding what fabric goes with what pattern. I usually just find a pattern I like and a fabric I like and go for it. However I've been much more careful with reading the pattern's recommended fabrics and selecting one from my stash to suit. Case in point: drapey fabric needs drapey pattern. Structured dress needs structured fabric.

The third lesson has been to test sew. I had a tough dress to make and so did a mock-up before trying it out in my more expensive fabric. The results are worth it, I have a very nice dress at the end of it with perfect seams and correctly draped and tucked. This is especially important if I'm sewing something where the instructions are not in a language I can read. Case in point: dress from Japanese book Drape Drape.

 The test dress from Drape Drape in cheap yellow jersey. I modified the pattern to line the back of the dress too as this fabric was a little too light.

 Even though it was a test, it turned out quite wearable (despite all the mistakes I made!)

This is the final version in grey jersey. I love how it turned out though the draping does make it a heavy dress to wear. This one has no mistakes thanks to my test piece. 

I made another simple gathered skirt. This one is made out of quilting weight cotton so has a nice stiffness that I think works with this type of pattern. The fabric has an old fashioned circus print with animals and trapeze artists. It is good to cheer up a day. I love the green background too.

Silk velvet skirt. This one is based on the simple skirt instructions from Cal Patch's book which I followed carefully and made my own pattern from. The fabric is really lovely, 100% silk velvet and feels amazing. I had just enough for the skirt, the fabric is actually an upholstery sample and so was only about 42 inches wide and 46 inches long, I really had to squeeze the skirt out of the fabric! I finished the skirt with some vintage cotton bias tape at the waist, a zip and a hook and eye for the side fastening. I was careful to double stitch the seams as the fabric falls apart easily and shed black fluff all over the floor and myself while sewing!

Unfortunately I lost weight again after I sewed this skirt so its now too big for me! 

This top was a test run for a dress (see below). I used it to test out the sizing for the darts and how the sleeves fit me. So for this I just used some yellow muslin that I had dyed in black tea and bias tape I had left over from my white dress.

I then experimented with cotton synthetic fabric paint to make a dye by dipping the shirt in it. It turned out quite nice, but I'm yet to see if the colour stuck to the fabric. At them moment it turns my hands a little blue which is not ideal!

This is the first dress I made using the pattern. I used a really lovely light cotton print for this one. I kept the hems all simple, just double turned. And I added pockets of course!

For the second version I used a heavier cotton and used red bias tape to trim the sleeves, neck and pockets. The combination of red and blue reminds me of a 60's air stewardess uniform, which I think is rather nice.