the long silence.

Oh dear me. My blogging has been terribly slack lately.

It all started with training for the marathon: all interesting cooking plans were dropped in a haze of exhaustion or due to complete lack of time to get to the shops for interesting ingredients.
Then straight after the marathon came the final few weeks of organising our wedding. Small and low key, but still plenty to be done. And by keeping it low-budget it meant lots of crafting and baking to be done by yours truely.

And now? What's my current excuse? Well, concurrent with planning our wedding I started the process of launching a mini business. Why? Well, next year I hope to start training as a tailor. Its a bit of a leap into a whole new career, but one I've longed to take for years: Well, I'm finally doing it folks! I have a place on a bespoke tailoring training course starting February 2013 in London.  This does of course mean that I will have to leave my sensible, full time, pension-providing employment and take a leap of faith hoping that the new career will pay off. Its looking possible - I've approached some menswear shops in my local area all of whom tell me they haven't enough alteration tailors for the volume of work they receive. I now have about 7 months to save up some money to help me get to and from London for the training course, and also to establish some earnings from sewing that will help bring in at least some cash to our household during the first few months of my training. - Hence the new business.

I have tentatively dipped a toe in the water of becoming a Crafty business. I've been experimenting with designs and making up childrenswear. I've taken on a few orders from friends and colleagues to make dresses, skirts and jackets. I've made a few trinkets and gifts; pocket squares, hankies, hair slides. Last month I took a stall at our local Farmer's market.

Market stall

So far I couldn't honestly say its been lucrative, but there's a little drip of money, some good feedback, and so far minimal outlay. And afterall, I've only been going for 6 weeks! I have a few skills I must prioritise and put time aside to learn, but I'm on my way.

I will be creating a blog for my business and so I don't expect to be having time to regularly write on this one too. To be honest, I feel that the cookery challenge has come to a natural end. It was hugely enjoyable and brilliant for learning new skills and braodening my food horizons, but now I'm saying "over and out".

If you would like to keep up with my sewing business I will update with a link to the new blog shortly, or you can find me on facebook: Whim wham clothing

wedding crafts

Dan and I married 10 days ago. So the million dollar question is, how did I get on with the crafts?

Cake:
Very tasty. The unintentioned use of stem ginger to replace some of the dried fruit was a rather lovely touch. Turns out the cakes really didn't need to be taller - there was plenty to go round with some to spare.
Despite the process of covering the 2 tiers with marzipan and icing (on the warmest day of the year) being a sticky and bad-language-inducing process I managed it. The decorations by my Mum's friend were inspired - fun, not too serious. An excellent reflection of the spirit of our wedding.

Bouquet:
A big hit! Everyone loved its quirkyness. The kids fought over holding it. It did take a bit of a battering, but survived relatively intact. And best of all it'll last way longer than real flowers.

Bridesmaids's dresses
Finished in time. Both girls seemed comfortable in their pretty dresses. They looked very lovely in the ceremony, but were comfy enough to run around in the park after.

My dress

Completed with a few days to spare. I learnt lots from the process. A few flaws in the finished dress, but nothing too crucial. I was very relieved not to have messed up my beautiful fabrics.

that's me in the middle





Bunting

I cheated! I stapled a bunch of old playing cards to tape and used that to string up as bunting. I did the same with some butterfly shapes cut out of multi coloured felt. Given that the rain started that night and destroyed all outside decorations I was glad I hadn't expended a lot of time and effort on them!

So there you are: wedding crafts complete!

Although we didn't ask for any gifts we had some wonderful handcrafted ones: paintings, wood turning, knitted items, cupcakes. We had a brilliant couple of days.

Wedding craft project: An update

Today is 9 days until I get married, so time for an update on project 'craft your own wedding'!

Progress so far:

1. Cake
Baked and regularly dowsed with brandy. Last night I covered the 2 layers with marzipan.
Good things:
#1 The crumbs I had tasted good.
#2 A friend of my Mum's has offered to decorate it. She's an artist so I have high hopes of a very pretty result.
Possible worries:
#1 The cakes a quite stumpy - about half as tall as most wedding cakes. Hopefully that's fine and everyone will be happy with having a higher ratio of icing to fruit cake!
#2 I forgot to brush the cake tiers with apricot jam before covering with marzipan. Hopefully that's not a completely crucial step.
To do:
Ice with white icing in a couple of days time and deliver to my mum for decorating by her friend.

2. Bouquet
Brooches collected, ribbon flowers made, all attached to wire stems and gathered together. I've made a fabric and tulle yoke made to sit round the top.

To do:
Bind the stems with ribbon.

3. Bridesmaid dresses
One completed, one needs the hem finishing off. This is the completed one:

To do: give both dresses a good press, finish the hem of the other dress.

4. My dress
Silk cut out and sewn, lining attached, zip inserted. Buttons bought, covered with silk and sewn on.

To do:
Sew on loops to close the top of the bodice, hem the lining of the skirt, hem the outer layer of the skirt, inserting horsehair braid to give it some body.

5. Bunting
Not started yet. Oops! To be honest though, it wouldn't matter terribly if this didn't get made in time as we have quite a few other decorations: pretty lanterns and strings of lights etc.

I'm pretty sure that this is all do-able in 9 days, with a full time job to juggle and various other organisational tasks for the wedding. It should be possible I think. I have a schedule, so as long as I don't slack off it should be all good.

I'm enjoying feeling crafty. My employer might not be enjoying the fact that I'm consistently 10 minutes late to work at the moment!

the wedding craft project

I'm getting married 4 weeks today, and because I do like a project its a very DIY wedding. Is it wrong to turn your own wedding into a craft project? I'm quite liking having lots of crafts to do, but now the deadlines are drawing close so the pressure's on!

Here's my to do list. I'll post an update nearer the day to let you know if I managed to finish everything in time.

Make my wedding dress
Progress so far: Practice version made in calico, practice bodice made in fabric similar to the real thing, real fabric chosen, bought and cut out. Started sewing the bodice.


Make bridesmaids dresses
Progress so far: Nearly done! Just need to hand sew the waist bands and hem the dresses.

Make wedding cake
Progress so far: 2 fruit cakes baked. Currently being dowsed in brandy at regular intervals so that they are suitable boozy by 2nd June. Will need to ice them a couple of days before the wedding and make a sponge or carrot cake for the final layer.


Make bouquet from vintage brooches
Progress so far: brooches collected, wire and tape bought to turn them into a bouquet.


Make bunting to decorate the garden for the party
Progress so far: None, but I have loads of fabric scraps so I' m sure it will be quick to do.

Its a fair amount to complete in 4 weeks, but hopefully I'll do it.

Birthday Cake

I am a bad girlfriend. It is Dan's birthday today. I forgot about it entirely until saturday, and then it was because my Mum mentioned it that I remembered. Not that Dan minds in the slightest, but I feel guilty.

Cue urgent ordering of a present (which hasn't arrived yet - oops), and slightly frantic wednesday evening efforts on the cake-baking front.

So here's Dan's birthday cake:

Its called a Passion Cake. Not sure why, but its essentially a banana and carrot cake with walnuts (I know that sounds a bit wrong but you can't taste the carrots so its just a moist banana loaf). I sandwiched it together with cream-cheese icing and sprinkled a few walnuts on the top. The walnuts looked lovely - they were foraged late last year in the woods near where we live and have been drying out in a bowl in our living room. It was good to find a suitable occasion to use them.

I won't get to taste-test this one as Dan has taken it to share out at work, but hopefully I'll get feedback. With any luck I managed to cut off all the singed bit on the top caused by the wierd hot-spot in our oven!

UPDATE: Dan said he was the most popular man in the office yesterday, all the cake went in about 2 minutes, and there was much disappointment from those that were too slow to get a piece. 

Goose eggs

Sometimes village life is surreal.

Last weekend in a neighbourly fashion I took a few slices of ginger cake over to our neighbour. In return I got to meet the 1 week old puppies his terrier has just had, and I also came home with these:

That's a normal sized pudding bowl they're in - ie these eggs were HUGE! Apparently there's a farmer nearby whose geese lay for a couple of months a year.

Well, it had to be eggs for breakfast. Bob (the neighbour) suggested soft boiling (8 minutes). That actually resulted in a slightly harder-set yolk than would be my preference, but they were tasty and very filling!

Finally some cooking!

I've failed dismally in the cooking stakes over the last few weeks. Marathon training has completely taken over my life, and has not left much time for browsing cook books to come up with interesting dishes.

However, this weekend being a 4-day weekend I actually found time to both run and cook something good! I had a little bit of a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall moment, and had a go at making (a very small quantity of) homemade yoghurt, and also a Jamaican Ginger cake from the River Cottage Everyday cookbook.

Hugh's programme was on the TV last night, which is what finally prompted me to have a go at the yoghurt. Dan had mentioned the process a few months back but we hadn't tried it out up until today. After my breakfast this morning I had a scoop of yoghurt left in the tub, so it seemed an opportune time to have a go. My jar of yoghurt-to-be is currently sitting on the hearth swaddled in tea towels to keep it warm, where it will stay until 9pm tonight: Taste test in the morning! If it works I'll buy a thermos flask to keep it warm next time - its not very practical to light the fire every time you want a bit of yoghurt!

And so to the baking. I felt I was overdue a baking session, and my old neighbour does like a slice or two of cake when I'm making it, so today I flicked through my books until I found a recipe where I already had all the ingredients. Jamaican ginger cake was the choice, although I did swap the rum for brandy because that's what we had (and surely once cooked in a ginger cake it would be pretty tricky to tell the difference anyway). Despite the industrial quantities of golden syrup, sugar and black treacle the cake didn't turn out ridiculously rich and sweet. The ginger and allspice gave it a little kick. Dan wants to try in with creme fraiche, I think a roast banana would be a yummy addition, either way its a good cake.