New Beginnings Part 1: Downstairs

Hi all. My little sister reminded me the other day that I had been decidedly quite on the blog for the past couple months. I'm not dead, I promise. We just moved, so I've had a lot going on.

That's right, we have left behind the lovely Lancaster for the much busier Sheffield. Tom has started his PhD in Volcanology at the University of Sheffield and I am once again playing the housewife while I wait for a visa application to (hopefully) turn into a visa so I can find a job. But in the meantime I'm keeping busy with our new house. Given the post move budget (which has been very tight) I have more ideas then actual projects, but I have been getting up to a couple things, so more posts in the near future. But today I thought I'd just reach out for some help and inspiration and share a bit of the new home with you. This will probably be a three part series, we have a lot more space inside and out. But the downstairs is the part we spend the most time in (at least in the coming winter months) and it's the first two rooms I want to tackle (as well as the ones that are giving me the most trouble).

I'll start with the lounge, and curtains. this is the bane of my current existence. I have searched high and low for some contemporary and stylish curtains to cover the three windows in our lounge (and replace those hideous blue ones), but to no avail. I have scoured several of the Sheffied fabric shops looking for fabric to make my own curtains or roman blinds and I've come up trumps every time. I'm still trying to decide what I really want I guess, I thought about doing some roman blinds with a fun print, but then I thought maybe I should do regular curtains because they're easier to make. I considered a combination of the two. I know I want to add some colour to our drab grey lounge, but I'm not looking for a boring solid, but a print might be too busy with an entire wall essentially windows. Really what I want is a nice think stripe. I've found some inspiration online recently for some DIY thick stripe curtains that I like, and I might actually be able to afford, now just to decide which colour I want and find some sheets to fit the bill.

I like these stripes.

Lounge colour scheme?

I really like the pattern on these and I found a great DIY tutorial online at Craft Interrupted. She outlines four ways she found to achieve this look, but I think I'd go with her choice and buy a couple sheets and piece it all together myself. Still a bit iffy about colour choice, I have some thoughts on using Scandinavian themed colours in the lounge, keeps it simple yet bright. I like the mix of lime, teal and blue (we have a bit of that going on already) and the dash of orange to brighten it all up a bit. We have shades of grey instead of brown in the lounge, but I think it might still work. I'm considering cream and orange stripes. Either way a trip to Wilkinson's for cheap sheets is in order. A lot of sewing ahead for me.

My other challenge in the lounge lies on the opposite wall, that big blank one on the left. I want to do a really great montage of photos and things on the wall, I have three collage style frames already, but I think they may look a bit sad all on their own. But I must get something up there, so it's that or nothing at the moment. I also have the mantle to do something with. I find this one a bit daunting because the mantelpiece is firstly so low, secondly so narrow, and thirdly I have that beast of a 1960's gas fire to contend with! As Christmas is coming I'm waiting to tackle this project for a couple more weeks, then I can do a Christmas display and hopefully inspiration for after the holidays will come to me. I think more to come on this in future Christmas related posts.

Something like this only hung horizontally.

Finally we have the kitchen, which is much bigger then our last house, we even have room for a table this time (which we don't use a great deal, but it's there). We have one big bare wall in the kitchen as well, which doesn't bother me as much as the lounge because there's a lot less empty space in there. In fact I'm almost worried about hanging anything on this wall because I'm afraid it might give the kitchen a cluttered feel. So i think whatever goes here will have to be very simple. I've thought about perhaps finding some printables or images of herbs or veggies from an old book and framing them simply. But I think by far my favourite idea is to find an old window frame and hang it. Now I don't think I would put photos behind, it would make the room too busy, but I like the idea of a mirror, or perhaps a subtly textured print of fabric or paper in a contrasting colour to the wall. But I don't have a friendly neighborhood salvage yard, so where I might find some of these gems is a question I have yet to answer.
That's it for part one I'm afraid. But there is much much more to come. I love crafting during the holidays, and I have several projects under way for Christmas as well as some fun stuff by way of baking to post about this week. So it's going to get busier around here!

Gooseberry Goodness

Gooseberries in my jam making pot.

   I had a surprise yesterday. Our neighbors across the road seem to have adopted us, their kids are all in their late 30's and from what we've heard, not particularly the kind of grown children one is entirely proud of. Anyway, they often chat with us when we bump into them and seem to have taken us under their wing. They have an allotment and occasionally we get their 'allotment leftovers' (the extra stuff they don't want or need). On Tuesday it was a bag full of potatoes, cabbage and rhubarb. But then I got a knock on the door yesterday  and received a bag full of gooseberries.
   I have never eaten a gooseberry before, or any product containing gooseberries. My only experience with gooseberries at all is that they are the only berry that none of my Viva Pinata animals will eat and can't be turned into anything useful by Bart. (Sorry if no one knows what Viva Pinata is, but it's a fun and slightly addictive video game for kids that I really shouldn't like, but I do.) Anywho, out came my trusty jam cookbook, I was pretty sure there was a recipe in there for gooseberries... and sure enough I found it. Although I was a bit disappointed to discover that here too the dear gooseberry had been rather neglected, only got two pages and one recipe, the intro section took up more space then the actual recipe itself. But I set to work and made a small batch. I think I probably got about a pint of jam out of two pounds of gooseberries. I again cut back on the sugar, I think the recipes in the book add too much generally and too much sugar stifles the fruit flavors and since I've never had gooseberry anything I thought I'd like to know what they actually taste like.

Gooseberry Jam.

   I was hoping the finished jam would retain the bright green color of the berries, but sadly it went a bit brownish orange. This could mean I scorched the sugar a bit, so if more of these green gems land in my lap I might try warming the sugar first. I also left the seeds in, the recipe recommended that I strain them out with a food mill, but I don't have a food mill and trying to strain all the pulp through my little plastic sieve wasn't happening. The seeds are really small and seem tender enough so I just left them. Plus they make it look nice in the jars.
   The finished product is nice, not really like anything I've ever had before. Now that I've used them for jam I'm wondering what else gooseberries are good for. I know you can eat them raw but they're a bit sour/bitter so I'm not sure about that. i thought about mixing some in with my next batch of Pims or white wine sangria. If anyone out there has any ideas about how else to use gooseberries please comment and let me know!

Mug Shots

I don't know what the weather has been like wherever you people are, but here in Lancaster it has been horrible. Rain rain rain and yes... more rain. Combined with the inevitable decline of summer television programmes, this is proving fatal for me and my husband. Normally this time of year we get out in the evenings and play a bit of frisbee or tennis or bowls, go for a walk somewhere or just sit in the garden and read for a while. But with all the wet weather I can safely say that neither of us will be suffering from tennis elbow anytime soon. Needless to say we're running short of fun, cheap indoor activities to fill our evenings with.

I recently discovered Pinterest. Yes, I realise I'm about a year and some odd month behind the curve on this one, but I've caught up now and it's like finding a whole new secret part of your house you didn't know about for years... or something on par with that feeling. I have a list of DIY home decor about three pages long, about 15 new hairstyles to try, and half a dozen recipes to attempt. I also found this super fun way of making (cheap) personalized mugs (and plates, bowls, saucers, whatever else you like). So yesterday I ran around town between showers and picked up some supplies (which was really the hardest part of this project, and we set to work on our personalized mugs after dinner.

 So all I needed for this project were plain white porcelain mugs. I got mine for 1.50 each at Sainsbury's because the pound shop and Wilkinson's both let me down, but these will probably hold up better anyway. And some sharpies, I got mine for half price at Ryman's, which was awesome! Altogether I spent under ten pounds for everything. If you happen to already have  sharpies at home well then lucky you.


So basically it was easy, we spent about an hour drawing all over our mugs. I outlined mine in pencil first, because I'm a bit of a perfectionist that way. If 
we messed up a bit we used some nail polish remover and a bit of cotton ball to wipe it off and start over. I just wrote on mine with funky letters, Tom got a bit more creative and put a volcano (surprise surprise) and his token spider on his. Once we finished we popped them into the oven for half an hour at 180 C. When they finished we left them to cool completely and then used them for a cup of tea.

I did find that some of the colors faded/ morphed into different colors in the oven, I couldn't tell you why this happened, but it did. Most of the colors were fine, but the lime green sort of went a browner color and Tom used a bit of yellow which faded and the light blue and teal both came out the same teal shade. Also, the teal ink on my mug seems to be rubbing off a bit, but the other colors are fine, so i might just reapply and rebake. I haven't washed them yet, so I don't know how they'll hold up. But Pinterest posters assure me that it's permanent but hand wash only. If it washes off then we just get another night of fun doing it again!

Anniversary Memories

    I seem to forget I have this blog, and then I remember and my day gets more exciting. I would love to report that the local pick-your-own here in Lancaster has opened, but sadly the weather seems to be interfering with the strawberry's ability to ripen... or indeed survive at all. So no jams, jellies or preserves as of yet, but my small jar of Marmalade based income seems to be growing, the office types where my husband works are loving the stuff. So as long as I continue to ignore the fact that I have enough saved up for a new blouse, I shall have plenty to church out some strawberry jam as soon as the farm opens for business.

The header to our seating chart.

    But for now I have some other plans. In one week from today my husband and I will celebrate our first anniversary, which I find very exciting and rather unbelievable, time flies when you're having fun or so they say. Anyway, I found myself looking through some of our wedding photos today and remembering all the find I had DIYing for our wedding, realised that I hadn't posted any of it yet and thought I'd better get on it pronto. I might plug a couple of the local small businesses we used too, apologies, but they were so good to us and did amazing work! Most of the photos are from my dear friend and fantastic wedding photographer, Liz Kenny, so if you're impressed and want her details let me know!

My hand beaded veil.

    The very first project I did myself after we got engaged was my veil. I had gone with my mom and sisters to buy my dress while I was back home in the states for a few months (courtesy of UK immigration services) and had been pleasantly surprised by the cost of my dress but shocked at the prices they listed for accessories. A simple, single tier veil with a beaded hem was in the region of $100! Being on a tight budget I thought, "well I'll just not wear a veil then", but my mom and a couple friends talked me around and I started to consider it. I took a trip to the craft store to find some supplies for my next DIY project and came across a simple plain single tier veil for $5. It needed some sprucing up so I visited a fantastic bead store in Highlands Ranch Town Center, Beadniks, which may not be there anymore, but what a fantastic store! I explained to the lady on staff what I was doing and she helped me find everything I needed, beads, a special thin and flexable needle and even the right thread to use. It took me a whole weekend of Dr. Who episodes on Netflix, but the result was fantastic and meant alot more because I'd done it myself, plus it only cost about $20.

Our invitations.

    My next project while I was USA bound was the wedding stationary. I didn't have a huge budget to order personalised invitations, and none of the DIY kits at the craft store felt right for me. So I embarked on a mission to make my own. Now having done this, if I were to do it again, I wouldn't. It took ages and although I was happy with the result, it wasn't worth the time or the money, the DIY kits worked out cheaper and would have been much less of a headache to put together. Granted I did pick a challenging design. But I had fun doing it at the time and being creative. I did a pocket envelope out of thick ply card, lined with scrapbooking paper and printed everything using Microsoft Word. I ordered the envelopes online. The save the dates were really cute, but I don't have a picture of them right now, can't remember what I did with my wedding scapbook.

   

    Back in the UK I really got going, with under a year left and a lot to get done my creative self was under pressure. I had seen a friend's take on a wedding guestbook while I'd been back in Colorado (thanks Karmen!) and loved the idea of doing a photo frame (or two) to hang up and see all the time instead of a guestbook that would get tucked away somewhere and rarely seen. So I picked up some tagboard and pens from Hobbeycraft and cut them to the size of the frames we wanted, found a couple of our engagement photos that we both liked and used some double sided tape to stick them on. Great because I can swap out the pictures for wedding photos (if I ever get around to it).

    By this point we'd chosen our reception venue, The Cross Barn, and I was trying to come up with simple and efective ways of decorating the walls given the restrictions on budget and that the venue had for hanging things from the walls and ceilings. I decided to make some bunting, it matched my DIY, English summer theme and would be easy to get up there on the day without spoiling the effect of the Barn's interior. I was short a sowing machine so I did it all by hand, which was a bit of a challenge. I think it turned out great and loads of people mentioned how understated and nice it was.
    I also did our seating chart myself, the photo at the top is of the header. I had a lot of leftover odds and ends from making the stationary and decided I'd rig up a seating chart with it. I cut out little name tags for each guest and strung them on leftover ribbon, then attached the ribbons to a large piece of tagboard under the table number. We had banquet seating at long tables. I made the table number cards for the tables using tagboard, a home-made stencil and sponge painting. Tom's mum wrote all the place cards by hand for us, just plain craft store bought place cards in white. And we glued the little blue bows (another Hobbycraft purchase) onto them afterwards.

Place cards handmade by Tom's mum.

    I think perhaps my best stroke of genious was to make my own favours. I struggled a long time with what to do to match the theme, create something that people would actually remember and appreciate, and not spend a small fortune. I had considerd buying small pots of local honey or jam, but I discovered this was easier said then done. My mom then suggested that I make my own, which was a brilliant idea and I felt silly for not thinking of it before. So I ordered my little jars from Jam Jar Shop and looked up recipes. I made Strawberry, Raspberry, Peach and Marmalade. I bought some scrap fabric and ribbon form my local fabric store and made little toppers. the tags came from WHSmith and I hand wrote them myself. The jams were by far my greatest DIY success, and I have had some many compliments about both the idea and the jam. It was one of the reasons I decided to start blogging about my jam making in the first place. Although as it turns out there's not been a lot of jam making going on recently.

 I did most of the table decorations myself, with the help of friends and family. I bought the candle lanterns from Ikea and filled the bases with ivy cut around my in-laws home in Hampshire. The table runner was from Hobbycraft. The flowers I did myself with the help of my sister, I bought bunches of cheap flowers from the supermarket and simply cut them to length and arranged them in pasta jars I had saved and cleaned out over the course of a few months. Simple, inexpensive and really suited the theme and style whereas flourist centrepieces would have felt too formal and stuffy.
    Finally I have to give some lip service to the fantastic crafty tradespeople we did use, because they did such a fantastic job and it all came out exactly as I had pictured it in my head all along. My beautiful bouquet and my sister's posies were created by Charlotte and her team at Moutan in Hartley Wintney. I was so pleased with how it came out, exactly as I'd pictured it, and I don't know how they did it with as little information as they got from me, but it was perfect!
And another special thanks goes out to Lesley at Bespoke Bakery, our cake was not only beautiful, but also very very yummy. We had half a dozen guests at our wedding with gluten allergies and she did the entire cake gluten free for us and most people didn't have a clue.
    If you are planning a wedding and want any advice on any of these projects or any other DIY wedding ideas, please contact me. I had such a great time doing all this stuff and would love to share some of my knowledge with you!

Sour-dough Starter: A Lesson in Patience.

   Hello again, I'm back. There hasn't been a lot going on recently, by which I really mean there's been a lot going on but I haven't actually finished any of it yet so I don't feel that I can post it. But I do have one or two things to contribute today. I was cleaning off my camera's memory card in preparation for the weekend (Tom has the weekend off and we're going to have adventures in Northwest Yorkshire) and I discovered a few photos I'd taken a while back with the intention of posting, but I never got around to it at the time and they were forgotten. Anyway, they're of my sour-dough starter that I attempted about a month ago and the resulting loaf of bread I made which has since been consumed.
   I've never attempted sour-dough before, this was my first go at it, but I remember my mom making it when I was young. We've watched The Hairy Bikers Bakeation over the past several months, Tom doesn't mind cookery programmes as long as they're a bit manly, and we've been inspired to try several of their recipes. They visited a sour-dough bakery at one point in the programme and it looked so yummy. Tom has never tried sour-dough before, in fact it's very hard to find here in the UK, probably because it's seen as a French thing and therefore unacceptable. But I grew up in Seattle with Ivars clam chowder in a sour-dough bowl, only the best lunch ever! But I had no idea how to make a starter and somewhere in my mind baking bread has always been filed under the 'extremely difficult, do not attempt' section. But within a week River Cottage did a feature episode on bread baking and to my surprise sour-dough was included with a step by step guide to making your own starter. It was the universe telling me it was time to give it a go.

My starter starting to bubble.

  Still apprehensive (I've never baked bread that's turned out right) I sought out some help on the internet, such a wonderful place. I stumbled on sourdoughhome.com and probably got more help and advice then I needed. In fact some of the advice put me off trying my starter from scratch, but I ignored it and went ahead. Just whole wheat flour and water. I got my flour from the back of my cupboard, my in-laws had picked me up some stone mill ground flour from a National Trust site in Surrey last summer and I hadn't known what to do with it, we don't really eat a lot of whole wheat anything around here and you can't really use it in cookies or Yorkshire puds, so this seemed like a perfect excuse to dig it out. The water was from my kitchen tap, just mixed into the flour until a slimy gloop formed. I covered it and put it on my kitchen windowsill where it would be warmed by the sun. Every day I scooped out about half of it, and fed it with a bit more flour and water and within a few days it began to show signs of life, little bubbles. By day 10 it was rising and doubling in size and I decided it was time to try some bread. Now, I'm not a very patient person, when I start a baking project I like it to be finished right away so I can eat it, I have a hard time waiting for cookies to come out of the oven, usually I eat more dough then actually gets baked, so waiting a week and a half on this starter to liven up was a huge test for me. but I made it all the way to day 10, yay!
   Now this is where I tend to go wrong with bread, and this time was no different. I added a bit of the starter to more flour (I used strong white bread flour this time so we'd get white bread instead of whole wheat) and kneaded it tirelessly for 20 minutes or so then formed it into round loaf shapes and left it to rise overnight. When I came down in the morning, instead of rising upwards it had risen outwards into a giant puddle of dough. It was bubbly inside, but wouldn't hold it's shape. So I tried again, kneading it back, adding a tough more flour and shaped half of it into a round and dusted it well with flour, hoping that would help it hold it's shape, and put the other half into a loaf tin. I baked the round after only a couple hours and it turned out alright. The loaf tin dough rose to the top of the tin quickly and I baked that straight after.

  My resulting bread was a bit heavy, this seems to be my biggest problem, maybe I don't bake it quite long enough, but it was sour-dough tasty and my husband loved it, so both loaves were gone within a couple days. I'd definitely try this again, and the whole wheat flour worked a treat (more natural yeasty bits in there), but I might try a different starter and bread recipe and see how it turns out, there's a wealth of different tips and hints online, just do a Google search.

My Garden in April

Daffs the slugs and snails munched.

   Hi all, it's that time of the month again... my garden update! I wish I could say a lot has been going on, but really, it hasn't. Next year I must remember to plant more spring flowering plants and bulbs. But there has been some action, my daffodils are up and blooming, the only ones still living in Lancaster I think, but better late than never, and actually I don't mind them being late as it gives everything else a chance to catch up and I won't end up with a dull spell after they go... I hope. Some of them seem to have had some trouble with slugs and snails in the budding stage, they got munched and bloomed out a bit scrappy, but i have two or three in fine form. Gardener's World has begun for the spring and they did a piece a couple weekends back about daffodils and all the many varieties, it's inspired me and I think that I'm going to buy a different variety every year and start collecting them. I'd like to find some original wild varieties and some of the pretty little Victorian types as well, but I should probably start with the garden center basics first.

The hanging baskets.

   I've planted out my seedlings, a bit premature but my in-laws were coming to stay for the weekend and I needed to clear out my windowsills, so I thought it was safer to get them into their pots and baskets then to risk the slugs on the ground (how the buggers manage to survive in a gravel covered yard is beyond me, but I have an infestation of them). Anyway, some things haven't done particularly well, my Lobelia and Trailing Petunia never really got started and my Morning Glory's fell victim to slug abuse and a late freeze. I'll probably just go buy a couple plants from the garden center in May to make up for it. But the Nasturtiums have adapted to their outside home well and seem happy. The cornflowers have started their upward climb and the Sweet Peas are slowly growing as well.

Mystery Plant.

   I have a bit of a mystery plant challenge for anyone feeling up to the task. I have an odd plant that's sprouted in one of my large containers and I haven't got a clue what it is. It doesn't look like a weed to me, although I can't claim to be any kind of expert, but as for what it really is, I haven't got a clue. I've left it there to see what happens, it's not really bothering any of my other plants so I figured why not just let it grow and see what comes out.

Cornflowers and forgotten bulbs.

   I have some bulbs I planted two years ago growing now, although I can't remember what they were anymore, but one has a couple buds on it, so I should be able to sort it out in the next couple weeks. Something like a Gladioli or Foxglove if I remember correctly.

Wild Poppy

   Oh, and the only pre-existing plant in our garden besides weeds and ivy has come back again this year and bigger, a sweet little wild poppy. It sprouted out of the gravel last spring and gave us one tiny red flower. I left it feeling rather sentimental about the fact that it was the only plant I didn't make any effort to help and it seemed to be the best of the bunch. It's back again with about double the foliage and a handful of buds.

Crafting. Mainstream?

   So recently I've been watching a lot of television... ok, well maybe not any more than I usually do, but I'm unemployed, so it's a fair bit more than the average 26 year old female. But I do try to keep it educational (by which I mean I avoid anything involving a so called 'therapist' and people shouting at each other on a stage in front of a studio audience). But lately I've noticed a bit of a trend, craft is making a comeback! Now I wouldn't normally bother to write a post about something like this, but it's just got me so excited that I can't help it.

Kirstie Allsopp, my hero!

   Obviously there's been shows like Kirstie's Handmade Britain and Kirstie's Homemade Home, which I LOVE by the way, and that's obviously a bit of a niche thing, because of course you're going to watch it if you like crafting, baking, or just Kirstie Allsopp, that's a given. But last season Kirstie kept insisting that crafting was making a comeback, and things like craft fairs, farm shows and county fairs were all seeing a boom in popularity. Now I don't spend my summers hopping around county fairs and farm shows, although they do look like fun and I'm hoping to get to one this summer, but I have noticed a small increase in the number of craft related stalls at the Lancaster market, so I was inclined to agree with her from the start. But lately, crafting has been popping up all over the place, even popular television series.
   My husband and I, among others, love How I Met Your Mother, it's one of our favourite programmes and we anxiously await new episodes. And HIMYM has promoted crafts like painting and knitting for a long time via the character of Lilly, the artsy Kindergarten teacher with an eye for fashion and all things retro/crafty. I always thought it was nice that a sitcom would have a character promoting creativity and crafting for younger women, it always made me feel a little less like I was breaking some kind of feminist mould by saying 'actually I do enjoy spending time in my kitchen' even though I'm still perfectly capable of doing everything else. But really, until lately, Lilly was one of the few modern day characters under 30 crafting for the world to see without compromising her strength and ability.Others programmes with similar characters included the ever popular Gilmore Girls. Again, one of my favourites from years past, with the creative minded mother-daughter duo and their culinary friend Suki with her greengrocer husband and the hippie type next door neighbours. All a bit too perfect to be true really, but I suppose that was the premise of the show, and I loved it! But again, the crafting was a bit back burner, always there but no one ever made a big deal about it.

   Enter my new favourite show and recent big hit, New Girl. Now, I loved this show from the moment the theme song started, which is funny since I didn't expect to, but I was out a girly programme after the sudden departure of Brothers and Sisters last year and took a stab in the dark. Anyway, from the short intro with a LOT of creative pizazz to the end of each episode crafting, baking or something hands on or home-made is almost always written in. I love the show for other reasons too, don't get me wrong, but I think it's awesome that someone thought to have a twenty something female with a job and ambition doing craft, and not just on her own, but with all her friends. Last weeks episode had Jess on a sofa with her two besties (one a model, the other a gynaecologist) and Nick's new girlfriend Julia (a lawyer) all having crochet time! Jess bakes on the show (cookies, cupcakes, the boys on the show are all getting fat) She often wears her Jam-boree t-shirt, implying that she did a Jam based fundraiser. Which is an awesome idea, we should all have Jam-borees instead of those silly magazine sale fundraisers or whatever it is kids are doing these days. She has a hat made of ribbons, if you can buy one of those somewhere, let me know, cause I don't even know how to begin making something like that. Anyway, definitely crafting is a big part of the show, which is super cool and makes me feel much more like I'm not the only female under 30 out there being creative and cool and yet totally not undermining all the work feminists have put in over the years.

Ms. Day's JAM-boree t-shirt.

   Then last weekend I heard something I found rather profound while watching Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations. Shocking because I really don't find much of what he says profound, even though he tries so hard to make it that way. But he said something along the lines of, we made a big mistake cutting Home-ec from schools when we decided it was sexist, instead of cutting home-ec we should have made it mandatory for everyone, girls and boys. Then we might all have a better appreciation of good food and know how to do at least some basic cooking for ourselves. And as my understanding of home-ec (although I never had the opportunity to take it myself) was that they taught not only basic cooking and baking skills but other useful things like how to sew on a button and balance a check-book and budget your shopping trip. Now I was lucky enough to have a fantastic mother who taught me how to do all those things and more, and I think not only a love of cooking gets passed down from generation to generation, as Tony often surmises, but also a love and appreciation of all things crafty and hand/home-made.
   Now I'm not trying to plug my favourite shows, although I realise that I am a little, I'm trying to point out that craft really does seem to be making a comeback, and that's awesome! I hope that shows like New Girl and How Met Your Mother encourage women my age and younger to make a return to some of the things that we've lost in the fight for female equality. I totally respect and believe that women should be able to work and have the same opportunities as men, I'm by no means advocating a return to the pre-war position of women as idealistic housewives. I love having opportunities available to me and freedoms and all that. But at the same time, I love my kitchen and my garden and my crafting and I do think that we have lost something important in our fight as women to be recognised and respected. We wonder why children these days spend hours in front of the television instead of doing something more productive, but it's because no one has taught them how to bake cookies or plant a seed and care for it or sew a simple cross-stitch pattern. This seems to be changing, the Guides and the Scouts have all seem growth this past year, or so they said on the news a couple weeks ago. Things like cake clubs and domestic goddess weekends are becoming more popular. And judging from how busy my local market has become on weekends, people are more enthusiastic at least about buying handmade products if not making them themselves. So if you're not already crafting, baking, or gardening, then give it a go!
 

March in My Garden

   So it's March, and I have a garden... or rather a 'yard' as there's no grass or flower beds or pre-existing plants apart from some ivy on one wall and the occasional weed. We rent our lovely Victorian 2 up-2 down terrace, so creating a garden out of the sea of gravel and paving stones is limited to pots and tubs of various kinds. I made a bit of a weak attempt at producing something last spring, but I left it until the weather was warm, sunny and generally nice to be out in, spent the minimum amount of time, effort and money on the whole affair. Needless to say it turned out a bit sad and I'm a bit ashamed of myself given that I've grown up helping my mom in her garden and should know what I'm doing. Still, better to have something than nothing right?
   Well this year I'm determined to make more of an effort and produce something to be proud of. I've invested more time and energy already in the last few weeks then I did all last spring and summer and I've definitely spent a bit more money, although not a ton thanks to B&M Bargains, Wilkinson's, and a bit of old fashioned ingenuity.

My back garden.

   So the garden last year consisted of a few tubs and planters. Two large ones which where here when we moved in, which really is what started the whole mess off, empty planters sat in the garden just scream 'Fill me! Make me into something beautiful instead of some garden junk!' and really can't be ignored. I bought three bags of compost from my nearest garden centre, Bay View Garden Centre in Bolton-le-Sands and got Tom to man handle it outside for me. I filled up those two large pots and set to work with a large kitchen spoon and my bare hands.
   I bought some bulbs, I can't really remember what they were, some Iris, something else tall and lupin like, some daffodils I think. I planted them and haven't heard from them since, except for one Iris which tried to bloom last summer and then gave up. Some of the green leaves came up, and haven't died back, they're still there, but no flowers. and some of the bulbs are just hanging around in the tubs not doing anything. I know this because I accidentally dug some of them up last week when I was prepping my pots for spring planting. I'm not exactly sure what the problem with my bulbs is, I think maybe it's because I planted them at the wrong time of year, but I've never really planted bulbs before and no one told me that you're meant to bury them in the autumn. I claim ignorance. Now I don't know what to do with them, so I'm just leaving them alone and hoping they sort themselves out eventually.

Some of my seeds trays freshly planted a couple weeks ago.

   I bought some sweet peas from a lady at the market, which turned out to be an amazing investment, she gave me the third one free and they were the hardiest sweet peas I've ever encountered. They kept on growing and blooming right up until the heavy frost the end of December. I thought they might actually survive the winter, but January finally killed them off. I grew them up some bamboo cane wigwams, which turned out nicely and I may do that again this year. I bought some seed packets and planted Lobelia and Snapdragons straight into my pots, the Lobelia took over and the snapdragons never came up at all, not sure why this happened, but it did. We bought a lot of veg seeds too, tomatoes, chillies, runner beans, and cucumber. But apart from the beans everything else had been left too late and didn't produce anything worth eating, we ended up with a lot of spindly dying plants in small pots.

My new seedlings!

   This year I've been a bit more organised, thanks in part to Alan Titchmarsh's gardening tip of the day. I now have a proper gardening trowel and fork, gloves and some better timing! I'm growing everything from seed (crosses fingers and hopes they all come up) mostly to save money, and also because I want to know that I can. The only exception to this is the Carnation that my husband bought me for Valentines Day, which now, after a month of being cooped up in it's pot indoors, has a happy home in one of my pots outside. If all goes well this year I should have Sweet peas and Morning Glory's on a bamboo pole trellis (which I made myself) to hide the bins. Marigolds, Lobelia, Petunias, Nasturtiums, and Impatiens in my new wall baskets from B&M. Miscellaneous Bulbs, Cornflowers, Carnations, Dahlias and Chrysanthemums as well as my leftover basket flowers in my planters and tubs. I've started all of these out in seed trays, some indoors a few weeks ago and a bunch more outside last weekend. The indoor seedlings are doing well, not hardy enough for transplanting yet, but growing quickly in my kitchen window and the outdoor ones are still too young to have sprouted.
   I haven't decided on veg this year, we have some leftover runner bean seeds which I may have a go at again depending on how well the flowers do. Tom got some chilli seeds for Christmas, so maybe plant a few of those inside when the kitchen window is free again. I had thought about trying some strawberries and maybe currants this year for jam, but now we're planning a move to Sheffield in September, so I decided to wait another year on fruit.
   Hopefully my garden this year will be something less cringe-worthy and maybe I'll even attract some bees and butterflies! Currently we just get a lot of spiders.... ick. Will try to do a monthly garden update, although not so long as this and full of photos.

Seville Orange Marmalade

Hi everyone! It's been a while, I've been so busy (which is unusual for little housewife me) and haven't had the spare time to write a post. My husband Tom is in the thick of PhD applications and I've been following him around to all his interviews and scoping out the new cities, one of which may be our new home in six months. It's all very exciting, I get itchy feet and like a change up now and again, and it's kept me very busy (or at least very out of the house) for the past couple weeks. But not too busy to get up to some other things! So probably a few posts in a row coming in the next couple of days since everything has slowed down to a normal pace again.
Biggest and best thing first! A couple weeks ago, Tom and I did our Saturday trip to the Lancaster farmer's market to pick up our veg. There is a great local greengrocers that set up shop in Market Square every Wednesday and Saturday and the veg is much higher quality and much much cheaper then the supermarkets, so we've started supporting our local farmers and small businesses and saving ourselves some cash. The best bit is that they occasionally supply stuff that you wouldn't normally be able to find at the supermarket, and on this particular trip they had an entire crate of Seville Oranges!

A few of my Seville Oranges

For those of you not in the know, Seville Oranges are a sour variety of orange, almost exclusively used to make Marmalade. You definitely wouldn't want to eat one of these things fresh out of the peel, believe me I tried, VERY sour! But for good, bitter, moreish marmalade there is absolutely nothing better. Imagine my surprise, first at seeing them at all, (they're seasonal and usually only found around December and even then I've never found them before) and then to discover that they were selling them 10 for 50p! I bought 20 and skipped home very excited about my purchase. Then I got home and realised that I didn't have any jars, so the oranges went straight into the fridge for a couple days while I waited for my jars to arrive from Jam Jar Shop. 

My jamming bible.

The busy week began and even though my jars had arrived it was still a day or two before I had time to clean up my kitchen and make a batch of marmalade. I modified a recipe for Sweet Orange Marmalade from a book my sister gave me for Christmas by Linda Ziedrich, The Joy of Jams, Jellies, and other Sweet Preserves. Basically she's from the States and it's even harder to find sour varieties of oranges there then it is here in the UK, so she created a recipe including a significant amount of lemon juice to offset the sweetness of the oranges and make her marmalade bitter, I just omitted the lemon juice and used less sugar. I use less sugar than recipes call for as a rule generally, I find a lot of the jams are far too sweet and lose the fruity flavours, so I 'sweeten to taste', especially with fruits high in natural pectin, since I don't have to worry so much about them setting properly.
Anyway, the recipe was a good guideline for water and sugar content, although she does fail to suggest a cook time, so I spent the entire first batch testing for a set every five minutes for almost an hour, which is annoying. I will say that marmalade is by far the most labour intensive preserve I've tackled, it's a good hour and a half juicing, de-membraning and finely slicing the peels, I wished several times that I had a juicer, may need to invest in one if I tackle this on a larger scale. Then it's two hours of boiling the water, juice and peels with the sack of pits and pith, just enough time to get all the sticky juice and bits of membrane off my kitchen surfaces, have my afternoon cup of tea and watch the Alan Titchmarsh Show. Then in goes the sugar, and a lot of it, the recipe called for 9 cups, I cut it back to around 6 and liked the result, but I like my marmalade quite bitter.

My finished Seville Orange Marmalade.

The one thing I noticed (besides the flavour) about using Seville oranges as opposed to the sweet orange varieties we're used to seeing in the shops is how the peel turned out at the end. The Seville peels really softened up a great deal more than the sweet orange peels I've used in the past. I had some marmalade on my toast this morning and almost felt that the bitty bits weren't bitty enough. I'd cut the peels quite fine because my last batch of Sweet Orange Marmalade had been too bitty and the peels were really quite tough still. So I suppose I've produced a 'fine cut' marmalade, and I shall endeavour to do a 'medium to thick cut' batch with the remainder of my oranges.
Overall I think it came out quite well, I taste tested on my husband and he really doesn't like marmalade, so it was a bit encouraging when he told me straight away the he didn't really like it, but it tasted just like marmalade. I've sent a pot off to my in-laws and Tom's Grandma, who will probably be brutally honest in her opinion. And I've got a whole bunch of 7oz jars left over to sell on Etsy, BUY SOME HERE!

Valentines Day

Valentines Day. I abhorred it for many years, mainly because I never seemed to have a man in my life in February. I still think it's a bit of a Hallmark holiday, but I'm a bit more willing to go with the flow now since it means I get special treats. And it's a great time for handmade everything! Tom and I usually eat in, have something special that we don't get very often, like a butcher bought steak or something and I cheat on desert and buy a cheesecake. This year we mixed it up a bit and got a curry from our favourite takeaway and I made desert.
  We had a long chat about what we wanted, and settled on a Black Forest Gateau. This was a challenge, my mother would confirm that baking has not been my strength like, ever. So a cake like this could be a disaster. I have to admit, I cheated a bit. But I think that's ok, why make life difficult when you can cheat a little, have a nice desert and feel satisfied with what you've achieved.

Homemade Cheats Black Forest Gateau.

  Anyway, I was a bit short on time and energy on Monday, so I went to the store, list in hand, change in my pocket, and as I combed the aisles for what I needed I realised that I didn't have the budget, time or energy to make the chocolate sponge from scratch, so I bought a Betty Crocker Chocolate Fudge Cake mix instead. It was fool proof, I couldn't mess it up, and I knew it would take half an hour instead of two and a half. Marry Berry would probably tutt me, I know. But everything else I did on my own, even whipped my own cream, well, with my electric mixer, so it wasn't that hard. But the UK hasn't discovered Cool Whip yet, so I didn't really have any other option. I cut out the cherry brandy, because I didn't have any at home (who keeps that in their liquor cabinet?) and it was expensive. I subbed in a tipple of rum mixed into the cherry syrup instead. The chocolate shavings where time consuming and messy, there must be a trick to it that I don't know about. Altogether it took me about 45 minutes to assemble, and it tastes like heaven.

Dianthus, 'Passion' Carnation

  My husband is responsible for the second half of my V-Day blogging. He came home from work bearing not flowers, or chocolates, or stuffed cuddly bears, but a pot plant from the garden centre! Now if you know Tom, you know that he despises garden centres, it's like pulling teeth to get him to drive me to pick up my planters and compost, I have to bribe him with the promise of a chilli plant or something. So not only was this a huge surprise, but his explanation was "I got this instead of flowers because they would have died in a week and this will last for a few years so I thought this would be better." And he was right, it's a Carnation, and it's perennial, so it will probably carry on growing forever, unless I kill it, which is a strong likelihood given my gardening experience. He even made an effort to find one with the fewest open buds, so that I could enjoy them all fresh and new. I thought what a wonderful idea! Why don't more men think to buy potted plants instead of flowers? Now every time I look at that Carnation in the garden I'll remember our first Valentines Day as a married couple. Also it cost him less than roses. Now I just have to plant it, looks like another trip to the dreaded garden centre for Tom!

My First Blog

Hi everyone. I've never done a blog before, and I feel that I probably won't be very good at it at first. I have tried many times in the past to keep a diary or journal and I have always failed, I'm just not that devoted to recording my own personal life. But as this blog is meant to be tied to my jam making and other crafty goings on, maybe I'll keep up with it a bit better. 


A little bit about me. I've been making jam since I was a little girl, I used to help my mom make it whenever we'd had a particularly good trip to the pick-your-own or Grandma and Papa's berry crop had a good summer. Then I took a 15 year hiatus and did the teenager thing and the student thing and basically forgot everything I had known about making jam, except that it was messy and not a fun activity for hot humid days. 

Mini marmalade wedding favour.

But about this time last year I had a wedding to plan, my own. I was desperate to find favours that I could make myself and would really have a handmade feel about them but that my guests would actually enjoy and remember. Eventually I stumbled across jam, and found some small, 4oz jars at Jam Jar Shop. I made four flavours, Strawberry, Raspberry, Peach and Marmalade, they went down a treat and I got rave reviews from all my friends and family about how much they had enjoyed their jam. Some people requested more, and I found myself giving it away. 


My husband suggested I turn it into a business, I think more because I've been unemployed for over a year then anything else. But I'm not a businesswoman by any means, I have two degrees in history and my maths skills leave a lot to be desired, so I really have no idea where to begin. A few friends turned me on to Etsy and I've recently set up an account. I'll have more details about it when I've got something on there to sell, it's empty and sad at the moment.

My husband Tom.

My husband is a volcanologist (well, almost) that's volcanoes, not star trek by the way. Anyway he started up a fairly successful volcano blog last summer, to keep busy and up to date between degrees, and his success has inspired me to give blogging a go. It also gives me something to do when I'm left home by myself while he's hard at work.

Although jam making will be the driving force behind this blog, I'll be posting other things I'm working on too, because otherwise it would get boring. Hopefully I'll be able to put in tabs or something so there will be a jams section and a crafting section and a baking section, etc. but I can't seem to sort out how to do it just yet. I'll be working on getting a Facebook page and twitter account up and running as well, for all you social networkers out there more savvy then me. Until then, thanks for visiting, looking forward to writing more soon.