Oven back on & ready to bake!

I've just put the camping stove away as the Aga man came yesterday to service it. It's been 2 weeks and 4 days without any baking or 'proper' food, it's been camping food and salads with the odd micro meal.


Usually after a service it is at its highest temperature although this being an old thing, it's well below what you would achieve on a new range. However it's always good to do jacket potatoes whilst the heat is there so that's my plan for tea.


I've just gone mad and made a recipe I've been licking my lips over on another blog, it's for Peanut Butter Bars and one of my favourite combinations is chocolate & peanut butter in any form. I will post the link to the blog where I found the recipe if you fancy a go.
Mine doesn't quite look like it should as I think my peanut butter glaze is too thick and using chunky peanut butter meant it wouldn't pour so I sort of dragged it over the surface of the chocolate. Still, I'm hopeful it will taste good!


http://cgharris.blogspot.com/2010/05/peanut-butter-bars.html

Today is good - I won a competition!

I entered a craft competition in one of the sewing magazines back in May and you had to make a fabric cupcake, donut, gateaux etc. Anyway I have a few of my cupcake pincushions in my craft stock which I was going to enter but in the end I thought I'd make a new one and try to improve on my past attempts. The result was my Smartie bun, a subject I know very well!


Today the 10 winners were announced and and with fingers crossed I saw my name on the list. It's so exciting, I've won a goodie bag which has over £100 worth of craft books & items. I'm trying to contain the excitement as they reckon it could be a few weeks before the prizes are dished out.

Derwent pencils on fabric

A friend told me that you can use Derwent watercolour pencils on fabric, it has to be the Inktense pencils which are particularly heavy with pigment. I've had a bit of a go with the pencils and its pretty good, they don't blend quite as well as on paper and be careful near the edge of your drawing as it can feather beyond your outline.


Overall I'm quite happy with the result and will be able to use this effect for small craft projects. I ironed it to set the pencils but I wouldn't want to use it on anything large scale as I don't think washing is an option.


This afternoon I used one of the fabric drawings and made a pincushion.

Hornsea Nostalgia Day - August 28th

I had a letter through from the Hornsea Pottery Society detailing the forthcoming Hornsea Nostalgia Day to be held at Hornsea Freeport on Sat Aug 28th, 9am - 5pm.


This was the first I'd heard about it but apparently the society are going to work in conjunction with the museum to put on a display of pottery, some rare and some for sale along with people on hand to give talks about the history of the pottery.
Calls are going out to past employees if they want to get involved.


I'll definitely be having a visit, it'll be great to go on site again and find pottery for sale in its old home.

http://www.hornseafreeport.com/events.php?id=92

Hydroponics & other crops

Here's the latest update from the windowsill and the garden crops.


Hydroponic lettuce going well and some of the plants looking like lettuce trees! The peppers in the acorn pot have started flowering last week and seem to be performing fine and as expected.
The weird thing is the hydroponic tomatoes which are still getting taller and haven't produced flowers yet. It smells like a tomato when you touch the leaves but I'm starting to think it won't produce tomatoes. Anyway I shall leave it and observe.

The tomatoes outside are doing better and I've got plenty of fruit on them. 

Another surprise was the bean plants, they had started to look a bit limp & yellowy and only just flowering, however when I looked closely I've got beans about 10cm long! It's as if they've popped up over night without me even seeing them start off small. I'm not so worried about the yellowy plant now it has the beans because the beans are yellow pod beans.

The potatoes in the bag are more than ready to harvest I'm sure but due to being without the oven again, it's been off 2 weeks today and waiting for the Aga man to service it, I only have a small camping stove to cook on so want to leave the potatoes until I can cook them properly.

I'll finish with food for free. The cherry tree just outside the garden has a few branches leaning in here so I've managed to get a few cherries before the blackbirds scoff the lot. They are very small and sweet and rather like black grapes in flavour.

Nice coffee from Roasters

Went to Roasters in Scarborough last week with the purpose of trying coffee of the day and purchasing a new variety of beans to try. I'm more or less at the point of stopping buying supermarket coffee beans in favour of sourcing independent suppliers.


Coffee of the day was an El Salvador variety which was pleasant enough, the packet I bought to takeaway was Sumatra Raja Batak Lingtong. I opened it yesterday and have tried it as espresso through the Aeropress and also as a filter and it works nicely in both styles so quite impressed.

New stock for Gallery 49

This afternoon I delivered a pile of new brooches to Gallery 49, ready for the summer holiday season.

This was also my first chance to see the Hockney exhibition of his etchings of Grimm's Fairy Tales. They have apparently been going out of the door like hot-cakes. They are very unusual, I liked one called A Room Full of Straw.
Some of the prints are signed and the exhibition runs until August 1st.

Driffield Show today but I went to Hornsea

I've not been involved with Driffield show this year. ERA were not having a stand this time so no chance of helping & getting a free ticket. Decided against entering any food or handicrafts as I came to realise last year that it seems to be the same people who win year after year, not that I'm cynical or anything!
I also don't think any of my usual friends who have stalls were attending although a couple of my food producing customers are there and one has been nominated for a farm diversification award, Gold From the Wold (cold pressed rapeseed oil) so I hope they do well.


Instead I went to Hornsea and had some treatment at the dentist, nice eh! It was a bit bleak and gusty first thing as you can see from the photo but this afternoon has turned into a scorcher.
I visited the Lions charity shop and got some fab vintage purple flower fabric (currently in the washer), a groovy Butterick pattern for a tunic, some knitting needles and a couple of mini milk jugs for the cafe I might have one day..... and all for £2.


Hornsea wouldn't be complete without a quick look around Freeport and I got some mishaped Thorntons chocs and this groovy little fob watch. I'm not keen on watches on my wrist, always difficult for working and generally uncomfortable in summer so this fob should do the trick. I used to wear a silver chain fob years ago, this one is much more up to date and the red casing is a lovely rubbery material.


Arrived home and still lots of cars everywhere around the showground so should be a tad chaotic in about an hour when it packs up.

Networking at Calf House Studios

Last night was our final networking event before the summer break and we changed the usual venue and headed off to Calf House Studios where Heather & her resident artists had thrown their studio doors open for this summer social.
It was really interesting having a nosey in the studios of other artists, jewellery makers, sculptors etc. The converted cow sheds make a lovely setting for creative pursuits.


Equally wonderful was the buffet which was completely vegetarian and not just boring stuff like cheese sandwiches & salad. We were treated to stuffed vine leaves, Spanakopita (spinach & feta pie), olives, bean salad, bulgar wheat pastries, roasted  pepper mozarella rocket & tomato tart to name but a few of the tasty treats from Kate's Kitchen.


A great evening was had by all. 
Above is an illustration I did of Calf House Studios when I was designing their logo.


http://www.calfhousestudios.co.uk/

Bird brooches in progress

This week I'm making a few of my felt bird brooches as I have a couple of commissions in. I will be taking the spare ones and some flower brooches to Gallery 49 in Brid.