Are you wondering what to do on the weekend?

Why not come and see us at one of these fabulous markets on the weekend.

On Saturday we will be at the BrisStyle Eco Markets.

This is our first market with BrisStyle and we are really excited to meet all the wonderful retailers that will be trading their EcoWares on the weekend.

On Sunday we will be at the

Boutique Markets

at Portside Wharf in Hamilton. They have lots of new retailers this month so we are looking forward to checking out what they have to offer.

We will be launching our new Summer Range very shortly so stay tuned for more information.

If you are our mystery shopper who left their shopping at Mathilda's Market in June - We have you bag and would love to give it back to you. Just send us an email with what you bought and we will talk about how to get it back to you.

Look forward to seeing you on the weekend!

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Big Market Weekend

As the mushrooms continue to grow - 60kg so far, we have been preparing for a very busy time ahead. This weekend we will be attending two markets. On Saturday we will be going a group of really inspired Eco Friendly independent designers for the BrisStyle Eco market. Reading all the blog posts about their really exciting and passionate crafts has got me thinking about trying to reduce wastage in everything that we produce. Our lovely Eco Elles provide us with wonderful pieces of woollen blanket, too cute to waste but most too small to use. Sitting on the couch this afternoon in the cold and overcast weather, and really not wanting to tackle cleaning the sewing room, I got to thinking........ and this is what came of that. Our new hair clips. These will be debuting at the market on Saturday and then on Sunday when we are at the Boutique markets at Portside. Unfortunately that means its time to go and keep cleaning. Next job on the agenda - pattern sorting. :(

Textile Show Brisbane

I had such a fantastic time at the Textile Art Festival in Brisbane. Not only was it a wonderful chance to do something just for me, but I learnt such fantastic techniques in the classes I attended. On Saturday I attended Screen Printing with Procion Dyes by Louise Snook. She was a wonderful presenter and had such fabulous things to show us. I came away all inspired to incorporate some procion dye screen printing in our next range.

Sunday was the immensely talented Ken Smith for Machine Embroidery. Never having done any before I was a little apprehensive but had such a fantastic time. Although a time consuming venture, I can't wait to try out a few sections on our next range of clothes.

A very brief chance passing of Jacinta Leishman's demonstration of felting also inspired the desire to try out some felting.

A big thank-you to all the presenters for being so patient with me and the lovely people who sat next to me and helped me out.

Now I just need some time to put all these wonderful new skills into practice!

Mushroom Mania

I just realised how long it has been since my last blog. Unfortunately with a house full of sick people the blog has been quite neglected. Not so for the vege garden though. After the initial build, we filled it up with mushroom compost, found for the fabulous price of 60c a bag on the Sunshine Coast.

After the mushroom compost rested for a couple of days it was time to go shopping for vegetables. My love of leeks and onions meant a punnet of each of these. Also beans, peas, zucchini's, eggplant, carrots, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower and many more. YUM!

The real winner so far has been the mushroom compost. After the initial 710grm mushroom we pulled out. The compost has yielded 20kilograms of mushrooms and still going strong.


This makes Mushrooms our vegetable of the month by a long shot and trying to find new recipes and ways to cook them has become a challenge but here is my favourite so far.

Tarragon Chicken and Mushroom Pie

800g of mushrooms sliced(you could decrease the quantity but we had sooo many yummy mushies)
4 chicken thigh fillets diced
a bunch of fresh tarragon
a bunch of fresh lemon thyme
one red onion finely diced
100g butter
50g plain flour
100ml milk
2 cups water
olive oil
salt and pepper
3 sheets of puff pastry ( you may need less depending on the pie dish you use but mine was particularly deep and I needed two for the bottom)

• Brown the mushrooms and onions in a large fry pan using butter and olive oil. You only need a small amount of olive oil to stop the butter from burning. Once they have browned slightly, place them in a large cooking pot.
• In a mortar and pestle, grind the tarragon, lemon thyme, a good amount of olive oil and salt and pepper into a smooth paste.
• Brown the chicken in your fry pan. Once browned, add the tarragon paste and coat the chicken thoroughly. Add the chicken to the mushrooms in the large pot.
• Make a rou using 50g butter and 50g plain flour by wisking the two together in the fry pan until they have a creamy texture. Add 100ml of milk slowly.
• Once all the milk is added to the flour and butter, add this to the chicken and mushrooms in the pot.
• Add a 2 cups of water and cook until the sauce thickens to a gravy consistency.
• Add salt and pepper to taste.
• Grease a large pie dish and line with puff pastry.
• Once the mixture has cooled slightly, add it to the pie dish and top with puff pastry. I weaved my pastry but you could just put a plain top on.
• Cook in the oven at 180degrees for approximately 30 minutes or until the pastry is golden.
• Eat and Enjoy!

New Truffle Monkeys Photos

We had a lovely time in the park this afternoon taking pictures of more of the Truffle Monkey range. Here are some of my favourite shots.

The Great Vege Garden Upgrade

BEFORE

Our home vege garden is getting a massive makeover. Please keep in mind that we are not professional gardeners but just trying to share some of our thoughts with you. We are creating a 'No Dig' garden which simply means we are building up the beds rather than digging them in,

Organic Gardening Tip #1 Preparing your 'No Dig' Garden. If you are building your garden over existing lawn you need to kill the grass. The easiest way is to mow or slash it, cover it with blood and bone and water it in and then cover the grass with something to help it rot. Thick damp newspaper overlapped for light weeds; something like old carpet for more persistent grasses. You can use plastics but they eventually break down into the soil. If you are 'No Dig' gardening over something hard like concrete, put down something to help the air circulate, like dry branches.

The first stage has been to set up the area for the 'No Dig' Garden. My biggest tip for this - don't expect your husband to build this in a weekend. It is certainly slow progress with a little one and no-one left to help hold the beams. We both somehow managed to miscount the number of sleepers we needed. Twice. But all things considered, it is coming along very nicely. Now just to get to Bunnings to get the last 6 or should that be 7, maybe we'll get 8 just to make sure, sleepers.

Website changes

We are making some changes to our website to hopefully make it easier and quicker to find our products. Lets face it, anybody with a child under the age of 5 needs to be able to shop quickly and not get lost in our site. I am trying to achieve that this weekend, between ear infections and other toddler related interruptions, so fingers crossed.


We have also just joined the BrisStyle team and will hopefully be appearing at their markets and events soon.

Have a lovely long weekend.