An exciting extra treat

One of the newer Cottage groups, MMM or Mixed Media artists are having an exhibition in the Cottage Atrium, so we got to see some pretty amazing artwork, including this grouping of fruits.
Painted by Rozanne, purchased by Gwen.
Rosey painted 4 of these, apples, pears, oranges and lemons in acrylics and tells that she really enjoyed capturing the different light and shade effects.

They will look stunning hung on Gwen's wall.

The Needlework Group, who meet on Wednesday mornings have been having an 'in house' workshop for the past few weeks on Gold work.
This is one of the finished pieces, left on the display table by Gwen. It's just the most beautiful butterfly, not sure if it is a pattern or individual design.
Needlework ladies seem to have taken on needles of a larger design, there seems to be a lot of knitting going on, the class on petite knitted purses as shown in the "April 22nd Quillo Workshop" post and here, Jan and Lorraine, 2 Needle workers / Patch workers, flashing their needles and having a good time.
Jan, however did have a very very sad tale to tell, with help from her daughter, she recently did one of those famous 'clean ups' that crafters do from time to time, sorting the good stuff from the stuff that needs to go find another home, all into black plastic bags...........
you know whats coming don't you?, my blood was running pretty cold at this point in the story, and yes it happened, all the bags were the same, all black plastic, and Jan lost all of her sob.... UFO's. sob...sob...

I have heard that if you want to do this type of clean out with plastic bags, at least use white for good and black for 'outta here' but frankly folks, having just helped someone else in one of these clean outs, which also had a small disaster.............use boxes and bags!!

Sheila is rather pleased with the raffle she won at the Maleny Patchwork Show, and bought the goodies in to show us.


Janette, bought in her latest WIP, hand quilting this lovely quilt in such vibrant colours, I didn't get the quilt story as these gals were so into their conversation, which ended in Sheila doing a chicken/rock'n'roll dance that who would want to break their chain of fun?

Arvo tea featured quiche from Heather, cheese scones, Fran's biscuits, some cake from Needle works morning tea and at the back white chocolate brownies.....or should that be whiteies.........and how on earth would you even spell it??, anyway names to one side, here is the recipe.
Cathy's Chocolate Brownies
Ingredients and Method:
Melt 150 grms butter (not margarine) in a saucepan, add 250 grams white chocolate buttons or block, stir til melted and combined. Remove from heat.
In bowl whisk 4 eggs and 1 teaspoon vanilla essence.
Add 1/2 cup sour cream or thick vanilla yoghurt - I use yoghurt from Maleney Cheese factory.
whisk to blend.
Add 1 cup plain flour, 120grams of almond meal, and stir to combine
To cooled butter-chocolate mixture add 1 1/2 cups brown sugar, stir to combine and add to egg, flour mixture, use whisk to mix thoroughly.
Pour into slice tin approx. 20 Cm's x 30 Cm's.
Bake in moderate oven for 30 mins, or until cake springs back when lightly pressed.
Notes: you can substitute castor sugar for the brown sugar, the flavour will not be as fudgy but the colour will stay whiter.
This recipe is based on a very nice one from Cathy at Cowbells Patchwork in Bell, Queensland.
Cathy has a lovely coffee shop and patchwork store, all under the one roof, so next time you are travelling the Bunya Highway, drop in and say Hi. or pop over and visit on http://www.cowbelles.com.au/ or catch up with Cathy's blog at http://cowbellespatchwork.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!