Bread

I've been making my own bread for about 2 years now, mainly with the aid of a breadmaker. However, for the last month I've ditched the machine and I've been experimenting with handbaking. Suffice to say, I won't be buying a loaf of bread unless I have to and the machine is having a rest in the utility room. Handbaking is one of life's simple pleasures - I cannot believe how tasty the end product is and how very therapeutic all the kneading is!

I'm making one to two loaves per week, using an adapted recipe that I found on the back of a bread flour packet:

Mix 500g Bread flour (sometimes I use white, sometimes half white half wholemeal) in a bowl with 1 tsp sugar, 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp yeast - I use Dove's Farm quick yeast:

Rub in 25g butter:

Then add 300ml tepid water to form the dough:

I knead the dough on a floured surface, punching and pulling for about 10 minutes - I've found doing it while I listen to the Archers a big help while passing the time. The dough is placed back in the bowl, covered with cling film and left in a warm place to rise. After this 'first rise' the dough is knocked back and then shaped into a round batch type loaf. I then leave it to rise a second time for about half and hour. Following this the dough is placed in a preheated hot oven and baked for about 35 minutes.

The result:

Best served (at the moment anyway!) with slated butter from Swansea market and lashings and lashings of blackcurrant jam - can you believe I tasted this nectar for the first time THIS WEEK!!!

I'm hoping to branch out and experiment - at the moment I have a starter culture on the go, which hopefully will allow me to make some sourdough at somepoint next week. Exciting times!

Quilt Progression

An update on the progress of the 'Freebird' quilt today. After I managed to complete sewing my charm squares into 9-patch blocks over the weekend, on monday evening I got on with the next step. Many apologies for the dodgy picture quality - there was what can only be described as a monsoon going on outside! As well as this I was watching Andy Murray's first round match at Wimbledon so was slightly distracted while taking the photos!

I cut the 9-patch block at the halfway mark vertically and then did the same horizontally:

Each 9-patch block yields 4 smaller blocks - I had 12 9-patch blocks in total so now have 48 smaller blocks. Tonight I may get on with the fun bit - arranging and organizing the little blocks into a combination I like! This is largely dependent on whether the wallpaper stripping in one of our reception rooms keeps calling me! I must learn to complete one thing before going on to another one of these days!

Productive Weekend and a Happy Monday!

Good Morning! And what a beautiful morning it is! The sun is streaming through the windows and I am going to have a lovely organisational and pottery type of day, hopefully with some sneaky quilting thrown in a bit later! I've had a productive weekend involving much crafting (well as much as two children and a Dr hubby on nights can allow!), a lunch out, lots of cricket (TMS mostly on the radio) and some bread baking!

Since baby boy arrived in February I've had to snatch crafting time here and there, which is as it should be :-), but my blogging has been rather sporadic as a consequence. Over the weekend I was inspired by a post on the rossie blog highlighting 'the process pledge'. In a nutshell this is an appeal to all the bloggers out there to post about the process of their projects - creative and practical, the highs and lows, finished and unfinished objects! In the past I've been very guilty of posting a picture of a finished project but with little information about how it got there. The process pledge is quite liberating for me as I have many, many projects on the go at once that I could be sharing as progress is made rather than waiting for the completed article! So here goes - a new blogging plan of attack!

Do you remember the lovely Deb Strain fabric in the previous post? It was purchased to complete a project started last summer (ooops) based on the 'snippets' quilt I made previously. It had been left so long I couldn't remember what went where due to poor or non existent labelling! There was nothing to be done but start from scratch but this time using a differet pattern.

Firstly I sewed 3 charm squares together - the charms are all from the Moda 'Freebird' range by MoMo - love MoMo fabrics! After reading Elizabeth Hartmann (of Oh Fransson fame)'s book 'The Practical Guide to Patchwork', I decided to change the habit of a quilting lifetime (not long!) and press my seams OPEN! I have to say I found piecing for the next step of the quilt much easier with the seams open - I joined three strips of 3 charms to form a 9 patch square:

(Sorry about the picture quality - it was dusk and my hand was shaking!)

My hope is today to cut the 9 patch blocks up to start making a disappearing 9-patch quilt top over the next couple of days!

Half Term

It's half-term week here and I am loving the lazy mornings and slightly unstructured days - I am a control freak so my days can never be completely free of routine! After the excitement of yesterday's sporting events (Swansea City being promoted and England's fabulous win against Sri Lanka in the cricket) today has a slower, more relaxing pace. I had a lovely time this morning trying out a new coffee shop in Mumbles:

It's an off-shoot of The Junction cafe in Blackpill and I absolutely loved it. The coffee and toast was sublime and the surroundings - well just inspiring!!! I loved the beach hut/whitewashed style and the little gifts on sale gave me lots of ideas for crafting!

On the crafting front I got a parcel in the post the other day containing some fabulous fabric:

It's from the 'Cherish Nature' range by Deb Strain for Moda and I think it is just beautiful. I love the colour and the gorgeous little bees. It has been bought in a bid to finish a quilt top I started last summer. I've been looking for a while for a complimentary fabric for the quilt background and finally came across this. I have made a start with cutting out 5" squares so I hope to progress further over half-term week! To completion? We shall see!

For Rosie!

My friend Rosie requested a picture of the cut rainbow cake - I am happy to oblige!

Rainbow Cake

I haven't updated my blog for a few weeks. It has not been due to the lack of creative process - just lack of time! I am lucky these days if my body makes contact with some form of chair - life is busy! Fortunately, I love busy - I hate being at a loose end!

Last week my big girl turned six (sob!) - where DID the time go?! I can't quite believe it! We celebrated on her actual birthday with a meal out at Castellamare and then a small tea party with three friends last Saturday. It was the most civilised party I have ever hosted - the girls needed very little entertaining and played happily together (with a little bit of help from husband who instigated a game of 'find the daddy').

I have been wanting to make a rainbow cake for ages but have either lacked the time or occasion to do so. A certain big girl's birthday was the perfect opportunity. Firstly, I baked 6 thin yet colourful sponges

Admittedly, a real rainbow has seven colours but I thought it might be difficult to differentiate between indigo and violet so I settled with six colours instead. I basically made a double batch of victoria sponge mix, separating the mixture into six bowls and colouring accordingly.

Secondly, I sandwiched the layers with vanilla buttercream before covering the whole cake.

Thirdly, the cake was covered with sugarpaste and decorated with a 'Hello Kitty' figure I made from sugarpaste, and lots and lots of flowers.

It was very much admired and consumed by four hungry little girls!

A Royal Day!!

I can't claim to be a Royalist or Monarchist in any way, shape or form. I do, however, enjoy a bit of pomp and circumstance and tradition - and I especially enjoy a wedding! With this in mind, yesterday was a wedding marathon as we watched Prince William and Kate Middleton get married - I confess that I had the television on from 6.20 am (my excuse is I had to feed the baby!) til the end of the BBC coverage. I also watched the highlights later in the evening! The whole thing was just beautiful and I felt quite privileged to have witnessed, albeit by television, a very personal event in their lives.

In honour of the day a teaparty was most definately in order consisting of my Big Girl, my friend Bev and myself. Baby Boy was also present intermittently but my husband found sanctuary at a fishing lake instead - in fact, from his description, every other male in the city had done the same. Curiously he seemed to know a lot of wedding details when quizzed...

We had a selection of finger sandwiches (egg and watercress, smoked salmon, ham), homemade scones with clotted cram and jam, tea in china cups, pink bubbly and some 'Royal Wedding Welsh Cakes' - my own invention! After the recent success of the white chocolate and cranberry Welsh cakes, I decided to add some dried blueberries to the mix to make them red, white and blue!!! They were cut out with a heart shaped cutter in honour of the wedding and will definately be made again - delicious!