A simple warm scarf

Before I show my scarf off, I'll just provide an update regarding my handmade jewellery!  I have made quite a bit of progress - although it won't seem so to some - I have created a website on which I just need to purchase the URL and upload photos, plus I hav an Etsy widget on there so people can go straight to my store if they like what they see - this widget will make it onto this blog when I start putting new items up for sale.  I have a Twitter acount which is ready to go, a Facebook page which is ready for photos, and I will be working on combining the two to save time on advertising and promoting - I hope I can use Tweetdeck for this and have it sent to my Facebook page!  I have designed business cards too, but I need photos of new jewellery which I plan on putting on the other side of them to give the cards a little bit of interest.  Other than that, I think it might actually be time for me to start experimenting with new techniques!  I can't wait!  In the meantime I have a book about "Web Marketing for Dummies" although I honestly feel I have read enough about that these past 2 weeks that I could probably write my own book about it!

Anyway, my latest knitting project is a scarf for a friend - this one is for Christmas so it needs to be warm in time for the January and February chill!  I LOVED this wool and I still have a ball of it left to play with.  It's SIRDAR Escape Wool Rich Chunky (51% wool, 49% acrylic) and I knitted this one on 6.5mm needles.  Not too big, not too tiny.  The colour is a really vivid blue from dark to light to dark again.  I want this scarf for myself but I have made it for a friend and it will be given to that friend, come Christmas!

This was just a simple double rib pattern, great to do in front of the TV in the evenings (which is when I usually knit) as there is little room for error, although I probably went wrong a couple of times, but its hard to notice really.  It's soft and of course it has tassels, I love making those!  Very easy to do with a 3 - 4 strands of wool and a crochet hook to pull it through.  Simple, soft and warm :)

Exploring my Creativity

Over the last few weeks I have been researching and reading up on running a small business and marketing, all the ins and outs of it.  I already have a store on www.etsy.com but I haven’t really been able to market it properly or sell a great deal of what I make.  What do I make?  Jewellery.  With silver wire and gemstone beads.  I currently have  a schedule which I plan on keeping to (hopefully...!) and part of my list of things to do is a blog.  Of course, I have this ‘Creativity Blog’ which I will use to post up the Jewellery which I make, but this will happen later.

Before I go ‘full steam ahead’ with my Jewellery, I plan not only to read up on everything I can find which is essential to run a small business, but in the meantime, I plan to blog about what I am creating in the meantime, and about me exploring my own creativity.  The aim of this is not only to make lots of things I can give away as gifts, sell to friends and family, online or at craft shows (the latter of which I have yet to do!), but I want to find out what I can do, what I am natural at, what I am terrible at, what I hate doing, and what I love doing.  I have no idea how long this process may take, but at the moment, the Jewellery business will happen after my exploration of Creativity.

So, let me begin by talking about my current crafting obsession – knitting and crochet!  I learnt to knit before crocheting and I can say I can do both.  But some things do elude me – I have tried crocheting a hat several times and I just cannot get the tension right for the rim!  I either end up with floppy, flat rims and a hat that just kind of sits on the head and easily flops off, or I go to the other extreme and end up with a beret sort of hat with a rim which is simply impossible to fit on anybody’s head.  I have, however, knitted a hat which was successful, although I haven’t knitted one since – this is something I will be pursuing at some point!

In the meantime, as you can see on my blog AGES ago, I knitted a few scarves, and although I have successfully crocheted a couple of flower brooches as gifts, I am mostly knitting – lots of Christmas presents!  But first let me show you my first crochet scarf.  This is a simple straightforward pattern combining three rows of 203 double crochet stitches, and a border of shells all the way around the edge.  I got this pattern from “The Happy Hooker” (Stitch ‘n Bitch Crochet) which is a book I cannot recommend highly enough if you want to learn how to crochet – because I learnt from this book!

In the book it looks a bit larger, wider spacing between stitches, but then again I always come out with something different from patterns because I tend to buy the wool and think about the pattern later!  I thought this scarf looked very pretty in pink and it has a slightly floral feel to it thanks to the shell border and the mottled pink colour.  A spring/summer or summer/autumn scarf I think.

Springing back into action

Wow.  It has been over a year since I last blogged about my creativity.....!  Well, certain things kind of distracted me really.  Stuff at work got to me too much and thinking about that kind of took over......

BUT.....I am ready to blog again, and I am hoping to continue blogging more often.  To cut a long story short, I took redundancy at work at the end of March 2011 and I feel fantastic!  I'm not too sure what I'm going to do but for now, I am enjoying being creative again, and being able to devote the time I want to it as well.  Not only this, but I am planning on creating and selling lots more handmade jewellery online, via my Etsy shop.  I had one set up for a while, but now is the perfect opportunity not only to play with my creativity but to see if it can make me some money!

So basically what I am saying is that I am back, I'm being creative and I am planning on not only sharing my creativity more often on this blog, but I hope to be sharing my experiences, ups and downs, along with some cheeky advertising and links to my Etsy store.  So keep your eyes peeled for more frequent posts.... :)

Siobhan x

Chocolate Pastries

Chocolate Pastries are SO easy to make.  They are pretty much like Pain-Au-Chocolats.  All you need is roll-out puff pastry and some good quality chocolate.  I made these with Jus-Roll "all butter" puff pastry and a bar of Lindt dark 70% chocolate, which is the darkest I can go and it goes perfectly with the pastry.  Don't forget to have icing sugar handy to dust, and some milk and a pastry brush handy.

First off, put your oven on at Gas 7 / 220C/ 425F.  Our oven can only acommodate one tray per shelf, so I baked one tray at the top and one tray in the middle of the oven, so be sure to adjust your shelves like so.  Next, get two baking trays and line them with greaseproof paper.

Okay, so roll out your puff pastry.  We used leftovers from making the Bakewell Pudding (see blog contents) so this was handy.  Don't roll it out too thin or the pastry won't puff up as much.  Cut your pastry into 3.5" or 9cm squares and set aside.  Take your bar of chocolate and break it up into small pieces.  You don't need to chop it up tiny with a knife, but its handy to have small squareish pieces!

Fold one of your pastry squares in half and open up tp see the crease.  Place some chocolate pieces in the centre of one half, leaving about 1cm around the outer edges.  Brush these outer edges with a little milk, fold over the other half of the square and press down the edges of the pastry with a fork to seal it.  It doesn't matter if you poke a hole in the top of the pastry by accident! :o)

Place all your little pastries onto the baking trays giving plenty of room for the pastry to puff out.  I managed to fit in around 4 per tray.  Brush the top of each one with a little milk, then pop them in the oven for 15 - 18 minutes until golden and puffed.  I usually take out the top tray, and move the tray from the middle shelf onto the top for another 3 minutes to brown them off.

Put them onto a cooling tray and dust with icing sugar.  Leave to cool a little bit before eating - the chocolate inside will be quite hot so you don't want to burn your tongue :o)  Enjoy!

Bakewell Pudding!

Okay, Raspberry Bakewell Pudding.....its SOOOOO nice! ;oD  So, here's the recipe - it's from the Hairy Bikers Food Tour of Britain book :o)

Ingredients:
1 loose-bottomed flan time with a diameter of 25cm
1 packet puff pastry
4 - 5 tablespoons seedless raspberry jam
150g (5oz) fresh raspberries
100g (just under 4oz) unsalted butter
100g (just under 4oz) caster sugar
5 eggs
150g (5oz) ground almonds
a few drops of almond essence or extract (I used about 2 cap-fuls)
icing sugar and clotted cream to serve (a good creamy vanilla ices cream is just fine!)

Instructions!

Preheat your oven to 190C/Gas 5.  Roll out the pastry and line your flan tin.  We buttered ours and it worked fine, our was non-stick so you can decide which to do :o)  Leave your excess pastry hanging over the edges of the tin, and trim once the tart is assembled.

Carefully spread the raspberry jam on the pastry base.  Take 3 or 4 spoonfuls of raspberries and crush them slightly before placing them evenly over the jam.

Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until light and fluffy.  Gradually add the eggs one at a time, followed by a good spoonful of the ground almonds .  Repeat alternating eggs and almonds until they have all been used up.  Add a few drops of almond essence/extract (I LOVE almonds, so I used the cap of the bottle.  2 capfuls were just right!).  Pour this mixture into the pastry case and grntly spread the mixture evenly with a palette knife.  You can trim off the excess pastry now or once cooked - it's up to you.  We trimmed it before it went into the oven, and used the remainders to make "Chocolate Pastries" (see blog contents).  Bake your tart on the middle shelf of the oven for 35-45 minutes, until lightly browned on top.

Dust with icing sugar and serve with clotted cream, cream or ice cream!  Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm!!

Top Tip:  Multitask your Bakewell Pudding with Sunday Roast!  When we made this, we were having a Sunday Roast.  We decided to make the Bakewell Pudding first thing, and set it on a cooling tray whilst the Sunday Roast was being made.  We left it in the tin, and after the oven was finished with and turned off, we put the tart back into the oven on a low shelf and took the ice cream out of the freezer while we ate the roast dinner.  After dinner, we took dessert out of the oven, out of the tin (loose-bottomed tins are ideal for this kind of dessert!), dusted with icing sugar, and served with soft ice cream.  MMmm Mmmm MMmm! ;oD

Birthday Cake!

I made a chocolate cake for my boyfriend's Mum last week.  At first I thought it was going to be too sweet, but I had been eating chocolate BEFORE I made the cake.  No, not the cake mix!!! ;oD  Now, this recipe was the first I have tried out of a book I got for Christmas- a book dedicated to cooking chocolate things! It's called "Chocolate" by Jane Price.

It was suggested that "perhaps Siobhan can make a cake.." followed by "...well...she likes chocolate" after being asked what sort of cake!  Said recipe was "Devils Food Cake" although I altered it slightly from the book.  I decided to make a chocolate sandwich-cake with raspberry jam in the middle - no cream because of cetain people with cholesterol issues.  Of course, this doesn't apply to chocolate at all...!!! ;oD  Anyway, instead of cream was jam in the middle, and instead of icing, I made chocolate ganache which was really just a bar of cooking chocolate (dark) melted with some butter, drizzled over the top and left to dry and harden.  Before the ganache hardened, I put some little shop-bought suger-icing flowers to decorate, and on presentation, a group of fresh raspberries on the top, surrounding the candle!  The only criticism I gave it was that there should have been more jam in the middle.

Now I know what it tastes like, I know that more jam will NOT make it too sweet at all! :o)

THE CAKE:

280g (10oz / 2 and a quarter cups) self raising flour

85g (3oz / 2 thirds of a cup) unsweetened cocoa powder

345g (12oz / 1 and a half cups) caster (fine) sugar 

3 eggs at room temperature, lightly beaten

150g (5.5oz) unsalted butter, softened

icing sugar to dust

Preheat oven to 180 C / 350 F / Gas 4.  Grease a 9.5inch round cake tin and line the base with baking paper.  Sift flour and cocoa into a large bowl.  Add sugar, eggs, butter and 250ml (9 fl oz / 1 cup) water.  Using electric beaters, beat on low speed for 1 minute.  Increase the speed to high and beat for a further 4 minutes.  Pour into tin and bake for around 55 minutes or untila skewer comes out clean when poked into the centre of the cake.  Leave in the tim for 20 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

THE GANACHE

225g (8oz / 2 thirds of a cup) chopped dark chocolate

70g (2.5oz) unsalted butter

Put chocolate and butter into a heatproof bowl.  Half fill a sausepan with water and bring to the boil.  Sit the bowl over the pan, DON'T LET THE BOWL TOUCH THE WATER.  Allow to stand, stirring ocasionally until the chocolate has melted.  Set aside to cool slightly before spreading it over the top of the cake.

TOP TIP: GIVE YOURSELF MORE TIME IF YOU HAVE A DIFFERENT SIZE CAKE TIN!

I discovered that I didn't have a cake tin large enough, so I used a smaller one, which was 8 inches in diameter, but it was quite deep - around 4 inches.  In this size tin, the cake will take longer to bake - give it 1 and a half hours or thereabouts.  Mine was ready in 1 hour 40 mins before the skewer came out clean.

A Special Cake!

It was my parent's Golden Wedding Anniversary last week.  Mum made a cake, and we both made little fondant roses to make a posey to go on the top.  The cake was a fruitcake, like Christmas cake.  Mum iced it with pale yellow Royal Icing, and piped around the base with "Golden" icing.  This turned out to be "too yellow" for Mum, so we made some paler yellow, pink and white roses with fondant.

The technique I got came from a book I had for Christmas called "Sweet Temptations" which is a brilliant book.  Its really easy.  Although, I do have a friend who likes to cut large daisies out of fondant and fold the petals up and over each other which looks REALLY easy, I don't have one and there wasn't time to get one so I had to do it this way.  I'm afraid I didn't take photos of the process, so you'll have to take my word for it!

I found this video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uzp3XfhUpQ4 This is the way I did it.

My friend has a daisy-cutter, and does it this way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4SfgfnzzXk it looks SO easy!

Wondering what that sheen is on the icing?  That's edible shimmer.  You can buy it in tubes from good kitchen departments and stores, just get a clean paintbrush and brush it on, you get a lovely satin shimmer to your work, and it often makes it look even better than it did before! :o)  Yummy!