First Five on Friday!

Yikes. Friday came round quicker than I thought...

1. Teaching prep
I finally got down to some work, and started my tried and tested method for planning my teaching year - shuffle lots of bits of paper around the table and hope they don't blow away. As usual I've lurched from having no ideas at all, to having far too many for the time available...

It's a hard task because I need to take into account the wishes of returning students (more heat dispersible, more textured stitching, how about some felt and paper-making? etc) with the needs of the beginners or less experienced. And I find that the more I start to nail my ideas down, the more pop into my head. Catching and containing my ideas into a 25 week teaching plan is a bit like trying to hold cooked spaghetti in my hands.

2. Sketchbooks
Also in preparation for my classes, I took delivery of this rather delicious pile of sketchbooks. Now there's a stack of blank pages Gina!

3. Mushroom
Sadly, one of our EG branch members (and ex-Chairman no less) died at the start of the summer, and friends and EG members have been helping the family to clear the house. An avid stitcher and beader, Fay definitely won the competition for "she with the most fabric at the end, wins" so at last week's committee meeting there was a bit of a fund-raising bun fight - with more at the meeting on Saturday. Despite my attempts to declutter and not buy any more STUFF, I confess a fair amount came home with me - including this beautiful darning mushroom.

How could anyone resist?

4. Food
In the name of research, I baked burnt some low-sugar biscuits this morning, using bananas as the sweetener. Hmm.

Hard to judge with the slightly charred edges, but I think they're lacking a certain something. Probably sugar. I'll try again, this time with choc chips not pecans. In other culinary news, I continue to knit my own yoghurt - with more success than with the biscuits.

5. Embroidery (finally!)
I have been inspired to make a bowl.

I should be finishing other things, but you know how it is once you get an idea? I wanted to try and make one using fabric, not water soluble and thread, but not wrapped and coiled, and not one of those folded quilted things with binding and ribbons at the corners, or a hexagonal sort of effort. I wanted it to be completely smooth and rounded.

This is my first attempt, just a small one because I wasn't sure my idea would work, but it is! I wouldn't go any smaller though, it's a pig to stitch as it gets caught under the machine. I need to work out what to do next as well. The outside is all one colour, pale blue, but I want a bit more texture and interest inside.

Onwards! Until Tuesday x

Bun overload

This week, I have mostly been baking.

Making things for Easter. 

Simnel muffins (also known round here as muffins of death since the incident with the Whippet, three muffins and the V.E.T on a previous Easter Sunday) - and the usual bread, as per this recipe here. 

I make this bread at least once a week - well, Mr G makes the dough in the evening, and I shape and bake in the morning. We always make two small ones - one to eat and one to freeze. You can make one large loaf, but I find it unwieldy. A small loaf is just right for making Mr G's cheese sandwiches, giving the Girl her daily Nutella fix, and for me to have the first end slice of fresh crust with salty butter.

Yes, they are different sizes - the first batch were large muffins as per original recipe, and the second batch were fairy cake size - a bit more manageable to eat (although some would argue that the large ones are perfectly do-able) and twice as many for the same effort!

I also made HCBs

and none of that flour and water glue nonsense here, proper pastry crosses thank you very much.

I hasten to add, a lot of this is for the freezer! I'm having a bit of a holiday next week, and so this is me getting ahead.

As well as the baking, I've been working on making some little sketchbooks (inspired by the books at the show last week). Hopefully they'll be bursting with work to show you when I next check in - ha! - watch this space! (Is that self-doubt, or do I just know myself too well?!)

Beads, seeds, berries and buns

I sold some of the (no longer sticky) beads on Saturday!  Hooray.  I didn't, however, sell any of these little beaded chaps:

(hard to photograph to show the humbug shape)

which is a shame, because I liked the idea, but then again I now have a new key-ring! I hit upon the idea of making them because I found a stash of little pieces like this, left over from making books in the summer:

I added a few beads on twisted cords:

and stitched them up, but twisted, to make a humbug shape:

Maybe I should put them in the neglected etsy shop...But the thing that puts me off sorting out things for etsy? Working out how to package and post things for a reasonable sum of money...and fat things cost more to post than thin things, even if they are tiny.  How ridiculous is that?  The postage would cost more than the little humbug key-ring.

In other news, I've also been making (or rather, eating) far too many of these blackberry bakewell tarts:

I don't bother with the fiddle of arranging the berries on top, I just mix them all in.

and then of course I have to ice them (not in the recipe) otherwise I'd be lynched:

The other day I was side-tracked from my otherwise obsessive blackberry picking by thistledown, of all things...

I intend to "do something" with it, something more than "putting it in a little jar" (have you every tried to get thistledown in a jar?).  Same as I intend to "do something" with these bits:

polyester shreds from the fabric I'm preparing for class:

We're going to be playing with leaves and transfer paints, and I think the thistledown is going to feature somewhere in my autumnal layers...I think!

Flurries

of creativity, not MORE snow! 

(I have to keep checking the view of the streetlight from my kitchen window, to check it isn't SNOWING again!)

The random pile of metal strips and bits from last Saturday refused to be tidied up, so I made a sort of pot/vessel/crusty bag:

Here it is mid-stitch:

Ann said that some of the copper looked a bit thick to stitch

and she wasn't wrong. 

Hence the big stitches on some of the pieces!  It all got a bit "clonky" (technical term).

I cut away the corners, stitched them together to draw it up into a pot/bag/vessel/container, then went at it with the heat gun.  It wasn't pulling in enough at the top, so I thought that I could try and thread a thick copper wire through the strips and pull it up, a bit like a drawstring bag.  So I did.

I then realised that I could attach dingledangles (another technical term) to the copper wire with thinner copper wires:

And here is the underneath, showing the weaving:

I'm not normally a burny-melty sort of gal, but I was quite pleased with this. 

I try and avoid using man-made/oil-based fabrics (nylon sheers etc) due to my (selective) ecowarrier ethics, so I was pleased to rediscover metal as a material. 

(Not sure about the acrylic felt though...I think that's what I mean by selective ethics.  And to be honest if I continued in this line of thinking I'd have to question the origin of the copper shim...and the beads...)

Moving on, another flurry of activity, from something I've never made before, to something I make all the time:

I can't remember if I've posted THE definitive no-knead recipe and technique, but I reckon I've absolutely perfected this!  I usually start the recipe at about 6pm in the evening and bake the loaves before school (if I'm organised) or after first dog walk (if I'm running late).

480g bread flour (I use half and half wholemeal and white)

1/4 teaspoon dried yeast (Doves Farm)

1 teaspoon salt

360ml water (room temperature, from the filter jug)

Mix the yeast and salt into the flour with a knife.  Add the water and mix it all together with the knife until there are no dry floury bits left - I do a sort of slice and flip motion with the knife.  There is absolutely no need to knead....Put a cover over the bowl eg. shower cap, clingfilm, dinner plate, and leave at room temperature for 12 hours plus.  Last week it was incredibly cold in the kitchen, so I put it in the airing cupboard.

Flour your worktop, and scrape the dough out of the bowl.  Flop it over once or twice using a stiff spatula or dough scraper, to form a big ball of dough - be careful with it, it is soft and squidgy and beautiful.  Cut it into two equal pieces, then turn each one around with both hands on the floured surface, gently bringing the rough edges underneath to form a soft, smooth ball of dough.  Place each ball on a teflon baking sheet, at diagonals to each other (so they both fit on one baking sheet).  Sprinkle each ball with flour.

Put the timer on for 20 minutes (30 if your room is cold).

When it pings, put a baking tray in the oven and turn it on to max ie. 230C and set the timer again for 20.

After it pings, use a serrated knife to score a cross about 2cm deep in the top of each loaf.  I use my bread knife.  Carefully slide the teflon sheet of loaves onto the hot baking sheet, return to the oven and bake for 10 minutes.  After 10 minutes, turn down heat to 200C and bake for another 20 minutes. 

When loaves come out, I usually tap the excess flour off the tops.

Leave to cool for at least an hour.

Yum.

I also made a cake:

A partially invented apple & almond cake recipe. 

It sank in the middle, but there doesn't seem to be any left now...

I have also started on yet another mammoth procrastination exercise (but this one does at least involve stitch).  To be revealed another time!