Dachshund Draft Excluder Experiement

A few months ago, one of my family members asked if I could make a draft excluder that looked like a Dachshund. I do so like a challenge and with a three month deadline I worked on making the excluder in drips and drabs over the last few months. I decided to make a sock dog, that was low to the ground and with a long long long body. Here's how I got on...

The sewing of the back legs was my starting point. I made a long continuous tube out of another 4 socks and used the remaining pieces for the head, the ears and the tail.

I had intended on leaving it un-stuffed to aid its journey to Australia, however this soon become clear this would be impossible as I wouldn't be able to sew on the dogs features.

So I stuffed its back-end, sewed on the tail and then started work on the head.











 Dachshunds have a distinct head shape which I did my best to replicate. Looking a little wonky in this photo, I gave the nose a pointed look, sweet little violet eyes and longish hanging down ears.

Here it is...

...a lovely long Dachshund draft excluder all ready to be delivered to my uncle Richard of Richard Morden Illustration in sunny Australia.

In fact it was been carried over by my parents as they were visiting and should have been received by now! Hope you like it Rich!

Pursuit of Preserves - The POP up village in Sherston

A few months back I mentioned I planned on setting up a pop up stall for the pop up village event in Sherston, Wiltshire. Well yesterday was the main event, having spent the last two weeks making lots jams, jellies and a chutney.




I used plenty of ingredients from my own garden, like this purple sage. Other herbs included rosemary and oregano.

I made quite a bit Hot Chilli Jelly, as it was a big hit when I made it last year for friends and family.

I got apples from my own garden and friends to make the majority of jellies.

For the Blackberry and Elderberry Jam I used elderberries from my own garden and foraged blackberries from hedgerows. These hedgerows included my parents hedge, they grow a delicious thorn less variety.

I also used home grown tomatoes and courgettes to make a sweet chutney.

My full list of available goodies was:

Hot Chilli Jelly
Apple, Cider and Purple Sage Jelly
Rosemary Jelly
Red Onion Marmalade (Variants: with Oregano and Sage, and with Chilli)
Blackberry and Elderberry Jam
Tomato and Courgette Chutney
Apple Butter

I set up shop in my best friends garden, with a table cloth and dollies I did my best to make it look shabby chic!

Each jar was decorated with a fancy fabric top, and a PoP label attached with ribbon.

Each different preserve had a sample pot too so people could have a taste of each one.



There was a free fruity muffin (banana, apple or pineapple) with every purchase too to sweeten the deal even more!

With a funky milkshake bar happening in my friend's kitchen, The Dizzy Cow, we had over 100 people 'pop' in.

Having opened at 3pm, at 5.45pm this was all that remained! I have now sold all bar one jar of of Hot Chilli Jelly... and raised £120 for Sherston Primary School, Busy Hands Pre-School and Sherston Toddler Group, not a bad afternoons work!

Elderflower Wine and Champagne Experiment

Soggy flowers with no pollen on them doesn't make for good wine, so this year with all this glorious sunshine, I jumped into action when the elderflower came into bloom at the end of June.

The Elder tree only really flowers for a week and it is best to pick them before midday, before all the pollen has been stolen.

This year I've had a go at both a fizzy short fermentation and the full wine, which is about 3mnths fermentation and then another 3mnths in the bottles. I thought it would be good to share the recipes I used and my experiences during the fermentation, especially as I used demi johns for both methods, this is not usual practice (at least not with other recipes on the internet) for sparkling.

The ingredients for both are nearly identical, however I will list them separately to avoid confusion. Don't forget to sterilise all of your equipment really well, it is the most frustrating thing to see all your work go mouldy...

Sparkling Elder Flower Wine

• 700 g granulated sugar
• 8 large heads of elderflower
• 2 lemons, rind and juice
• 4.5 litres (8 pints) of boiled water
• 2 tbsp white wine vinegar
• and you might need a pinch of dried yeast, depends on where you live

Elder Flower Wine

• 1.3kg (3 lbs) sugar
• 12 large heads elder flower
• 2 lemons, rind and juice
• 4.5 litres (8 pints) of boiled water
• 25g (Half an ounce) yeast

When you have picked your elder flowers place them on a plate, or newspaper to allow any creepy crawlies to move away. Only shake the flowers as a last resort as the loss of pollen will mean a loss of flavour.

 

To start add the boiled water to your fermenting bin, this can be bought for a brewing supplier or you could use a large household bucket. Dissolve the sugar, stirring the water with a plastic spoon not metal or wood. While this is cooling start preparing you elder flowers.

 

Carefully remove the flowers from the stalks, I attempted this with a fork and combing the stalks but it was very slow going. If you are impatient like me then use a pair of scissors to carefully remove flowers and leaving the minimal amount of stalk left.

 

 Add the elder flowers, lemon juice and rind to the sugar water in the fermenting bin. I added extra lemon to the sparkling wine (pictured left) for good measure. For the sparkling wine add the vinegar at this point, for the normal wine add the yeast (if it is necessary to add yeast to the sparkling this can be done later on).

 Give the musk a good stir and cover with a piece of muslin cloth or a clean tea towel.

 

The Wine musk must now stand for three or four days, the sparkling wine however only needs 24 hours. After allowing to stand for the recommended amount of time, stain the mixture through a large jelly bag or similar, making sure to squeeze out every last bit of flavour at this point! Add the liquid to a sterilised demi john, do not fill much above the shoulder of the demi john and add air lock. Leave the sparkling wine 2wks or so, leave the wine 3mnths before bottling, racking once, maybe twice during this period.

I made three lots of sparkling (picture right) and one of wine, this is a fair bit to handle so make your decision carefully about how much you make. 

If you have additional sparkling wine mixture is okay to use sterilised bottles, in fact most internet recipes will advise this with claims you need to seal in the fermentation. I can assure you, you won't loss the fizziness if you use a demi john, it is the fermentation that provides the fizz and this continues. Keep a close eye on your sparkling wine when brewing in plastic bottles, release the pressure daily if you don't want them to explode.

I had no explosions however there are some observations that I think will help. The sparkling wine develops floating sediment, it looks rather odd (see picture left) but will be minimal by the end of the brewing period. When you bottle up the sparkling wine, siphon out the wine using

sterilised plastic tubing to avoid picking any sediment up.

If after a couple of days there is no action in the sparkling wine demi jonhs, remove the bung and sprinkling in a few grains of yeast, no more. Usually you can rely on the natural yeast but it may not be prevalent where you live.

The elderflower wine will be a much darker colour yellow than the sparkling and will bubble like mad once the yeast has got going, it does start to clear slowly to a colour more associated with a white wine.

The elderflower wine will be a much darker colour yellow than the sparkling and will bubble like mad once the yeast has got going, it does start to clear slowly to a colour more associated with a white wine.

So here is the finished sparkling wine, the normal wine is still fermenting but is clearing more every day. It is a most delicious and delicate drink but be a little careful, it doesn't taste to alcoholic but I can assure you that yeast has definitely done something!

Please please ask me any questions or let me know if you think I have left anything out.


I have realised while writing this blog that I neglected to blog my ginger beer recipe last year, which is incredibly similar brew. Will try and write one soon especially as my brother has just started his own ginger beer plant. 

Sea, Sand and Seafood

Popped south to Bude/Widemouth Bay in north Cornwall coast a couple of weekends ago for a little holiday with the other half another two couple and their four children. We were a big group but it was great fun and we had the most glorious weather (may it still continue in the longest heat wave in the UK that I can remember)!

 My favourite thing to do at the beach (except read) is to go on a treasure hunt. This went down well with the two little girls, who both helped me find some shells and cool looking pebbles. So I built ny own sand garden to keep them entertained... I'm glad I took a picture as one of the boys then destroyed it, oh well we had also built lots of sand castles with moats too.







Me and the other half then went a little further south to Padstow, a very popular fishing port were we tasted all the local Cornish ales and watched boats.

Padstow is also the location of Rick Stein's The Seafood Resturant were for dinner we had the most massive Fruits De Mere, a late birthday meal for my other half. The crab was the most challenging, and I discovered I don't like the roe of scallops but I do like razor clams!











Here I am outside, in case you needed proof hehe

The first POP up village

One of my best friends is helping to organise and run what is considered to be the first pop up village in the country this September. The local residents of Sherton, Wiltshire are banding together lots of clever ideas and talent to raise money for the Busy Hands Preschool, the toddler group and Sherston Primary School.

Many exciting ideas have already been put forward, a pop up farm, fancy dress, cafes and pop up photo shoots. Check out their Facebook page to catch the latest pops people are organising: The Pop Up Village and their main website thepopupvillage.com/.

I plan to hi-jack my friend Gemma's garden and have a homemade preserves and booze stall. While in the her kitchen Gem will be making delicious milkshakes in a pop up milkshake bar (I have been promised to be supplied throughout the day, yum!).

Now when I say booze, I recently bottled up some rhubarb wine that I made last year, my first attempt at a white wine. Well it wasn't a failure, but it also wasn't a wine. On tasting it was a most delicious dry white sherry! I am not the biggest sherry drinker (one glass at Christmas maybe?) so I though what better to do with it than sell it and make some money for charity. As it was home grown rhubarb there are no real costs to cover, all proceeds of the sherry can go to charity as profit! Over the next couple of weeks I also hope to make some elderflower fizzy wine, dependent on the rain, that can also be on the stand.


Preserve wise I intend on making two or three different things, firstly the chilli jelly I have mentioned previously in Christmas Preserve Swap as it is a very tasty and pretty jelly to make. Next is my favourite thing at the moment, red onion marmalade. In fact I eat it so much I have just made a fresh batch! I have made chilli ones and herb infused ones, but even just on its own it is the yummiest relish to have with gooey cheeses. I would also like to try and make a tomato and chilli jam just too really pull in the chilliphiles!

Now with the content of the stall all planned out, I just need to think of a name that pops! Anyone have any good ideas???

Eggs for Breakfast

Pancakes or waffles with bacon and maple syrup is my favorite treat for breakfast but having that everyday isn't too healthy! Mmmm pancakes....

I got up early this morning to cook myself a decent protein breakfast and plan to do so for the rest of the week. Its not the easiest breakfast for me however, one of those weird people that only like the egg yolk (I have only met one other person that feels the same but I am sure there are others out there!). I normal poach or fry eggs but I have also tried doing scrambled yolk in the past after making several batches of macaroons, which of course needs tonnes of egg white!

So I'll be in the kitchen tomorrow morning at 7am ish, cooking some eggs, and half dreaming of pancakes and waffles.... all in the name of cutting down on carbohydrates and sugars, and hopefully losing a few pounds!

Whats you favorite breakfast or your best healthy option?

Fairwell Mr. Lime Green

Awww I will miss you amethyst eyes Mr. Lime Green.

Yes Mr. Lime Green is off to Canada to a new home!

Prize Making for Work Socials

A couple of weeks ago I helped organise two events at work in aid of Red Nose Day. The first was a bake off, where I encouraged as many of my colleges to bake as I could. Not everyone entered the competition, but then the main aim was to sell cake to raise money.



We had a total of 12 amazing entries, which were judged on appearance, technical ability, comic value and taste by four of the big bosses at work (easy to convince the CEO to help when it's for charity and there is free cake!).









Much fun was had, plenty of cake was sold and we raised over £200 for Red Nose Day.
I made these delicious creme egg brownies and a pink and chocolate marble cake covered in butter icing, yum!








This brings me now to the prizes, bronze, silver and gold bake off medals! My college Paul sourced the spoons/spatula and sprayed them with metallic paint. I threaded red ribbon through holes in the handles so they could be hung around the winner's necks and added the spotty red ribbon (this ribbon was foraged from a gift I received). I think our three winners were pretty pleased with their medals.








The following week I made four golden crowns to award to the winners of a quiz night hosted at work. As we were again raising money for Red Nose Day, we couldn't give a money prize. Made from gold card, I used red and silver glitter (any excuse to use glitter) to add detail. The winning team did really well and I think they rather enjoyed been crowned the winners!




The quiz night raised another £150 or so for Red Nose Day with the team entry fee and a bottle raffle, making a total of £350 odd raised, not too bad!

He Says She Waffles

...I must have been tired yesterday because I didn't get the joke for a few minutes... but I did get to eat the most delicious waffles with maple syrup and pecan nuts yesterday at He Says She Waffles in Cirencester yesterday with the parents and my brother.

We had a quick nosed at the craft market, where I found the most lovely stall run by Val, check out here stuff on SoftTOM etsy shop and SoftTOM. I need one of these chickens....

We also popped to the Kitchen shop were I try so hard not to buy anything, honestly! I got these gorgeous 'treat bag kits'. These kind of bags were something I was seriously lacking last Christmas... its all very well making yummy biscuits or chocolate truffles but you need something to give them in!

 

The reason I was trying to behave and not spend any money is that we are moving on the 1st of March to an unfurnished house. So will be behaving not raving for the next few weeks so we can buy furniture! Very excited as the plan is to set up the 2nd bedroom (at least half of it anyhow) as my crafty room!! No longer will I be squashed into the computer room, and I will have a big desk to start clothes making again. Exciting times :)

Lucky the Sock Cat has a tea party

In the last month or so I have found no time at all to be writing about all the little things I have found myself doing. The sock animal experiement, often involving looking through google images to see what other people have done and then building my developing my own design (do an image search for sock 'insert random animal of your choice here' and you will be amazed!). I spent a lot of December planning homemade Christmas gifts too, all of which I will try and get writing about but today was all about the tea party.

For me this afternoon was about getting some naturally lite high quality images of my stock (it maybe freezing in the UK but it was lovely and sunny today), for Lucky it was all about the afternoon tea!

I let her invite several sock monkeys to the event, she was very excited!

So were the other monkeys, they had fine china, and I let them use the teacosey my Grandmother crocheted me.








Some of the monkeys were more keen on the chocolate cookies!

Some were just delighted to be having high tea!

All in all, it was a successful photo shoot for myself and these guys will all be listed on my etsy shop over the next few weeks.