Raglan prep - stuff to be made for others

The first item has come off my list, allowing that two weeks before the event is a little early to be making the baked good bribery items.

Last year seemed to be a blanket year for the bumps of my acquaintance, while this year cardigan patterns have caught my eye. I've one more pattern I'd like to make up, but alas, I have a shortage of bumps. This one though, will be given to a mini someone at Raglan, and is sized for wear-ability over the winter.

The pattern is Baby Sophisticate, and is made primarily with Drops fabel. I actually ran short of yarn for the collar, and made up the difference with a Lidl purchased solid colour, which I'm actually delighted I did; the different colour really makes the collar pop.


The second item I needed to complete was a piece of Viking wire weave jewellery for a barter exchange.

This is made in a double weave with 0.4mm silver plated wire, which my fingers greatly objected to at first. It's a wonder I try any delicate work at all sometimes, so determined are my hands to refuse to work with it.

The necklace is shortish, being made to sit just below the gap in the clavicular notches when worn.




And because this is very worth mentioning, this is the first time I've managed to successfully manufacture my own end caps! Ok, sure, they're not absolutely perfect, but they look solid, rather than the gap-y monstrosities of my previous attempts. It's almost like I had a class in this stuff coming up or something... 

Raglan Prep - first post of...many

Raglan preparation this year breaks down into three categories:

• Stuff to be made for other people
• Stuff to be prepared for classes
• Stuff for myself

Though that last one tends to be endless and is subject to heavy prioritisation. Things... are not going well, not least because leaving component parts in other peoples houses does not lead to progress. But there's time yet!*

So far I've been cutting out multiple hat patterns so I can have several "and here's one I made earlier" stages available for construction demonstration at my class.The trick with these will be to assemble them with as little handling as possible, so the fabrics don't disintegrate along the edges in the time between now and the event.




On the knitting front, the first of the gift items has been delivered, a little socky purse that I actually developed the pattern for myself.




They were made from the same yarn (malabrigo, my favourite) and to go to the same recipient of the Aragorn socks I made earlier this year, and which even came to a Professor Elemental show with me.

* Famous last words

Essential kit

Trying to buy a new car and get all the paperwork lined up so I don't miss out on a holiday with friends is a rather stressful experience. How and ever, it's all sorted out now, and while I melt with relief, I've had a chance to catch up on a few things.

Firstly, to go with the long awaited red dress (which no, isn't quite finished yet), I needed a new apron! My current apron, being cut from the same red linen, simply wouldn't do.

So I came across some green fabric, I believe a linen-cotton mix, and decided to use that to make up my new apron. I had the pictures taken wearing the new over the old, so I could compare for length. The green was actually cut from an unfinished project, and I had concerns that it would be too short, but it actually comes out just nicely. It's desperately in need of an iron though, those crease you can see in the front are from the old darts that were sewn into it. The hems are sewn with cotton thread, and I used the same thread to make up a couple of fingerloops braids for the closure.

You see, this apron has a little more history than my other projects. The unfinished project that donated the fabric was a dress I made for my mother, that was so close to being finished that when I first came across it a couple of years ago, after she'd passed, I was racked with guilt over how little I had left to do. But when I found it again recently, I thought it would be much better for the fabric to be used in a way to honour her.

The apron in Italian renaissance garb is an essential piece of equipment. Even in the portraits of noble ladies, a piece of embroidered and lace worked heirloom hangs from their waists, alongside the jewels and other accessories. And for the working woman, I don't think I've seen a picture yet where an apron was absent. So with the red apron for the black dress and the green for the very-soon-to-be-finished red dress, it'll be an item that comes with me to every event. So even though she's not around any more, she'll be with me at each occasion.

Post event ... reds?

Festival of Fools III is long over, and I think I'm just about recovered.

The food for the event was exceptional, even if the feastocrat of Saturday's feast insisted on sharing with us the flavour of her farts....

As with each year, new games were held, such as the Tower, where the poor shire Duck sat on a pile of boxes to be mercilessly batted across the field.. and the armoured fighters swear they were aiming for the tower...

The archery tournament, a clout shoot named "Shooting Fish in a Barrel" which proved that come the apocalypse, we're all going to starve...

The equestrian tournament was run by Don Juan, though I can't summon enough flem or roll my "r"'s enough to do his name justice. Black Numpty, a traditionally skittish horse, topped the field!

The thrown weapons tourney diced with the offspring of the elder gods, but eventually the target was hit and octopus tentacles were added to the menu that night.

And Sharks!, a timed survival fencing tournament that was over rather quickly, though the sharks ate well that night.

We also experimented with the format of the event, with Sunday feast being served at lunchtime, to be followed by the casino, and having a game themed feast board was a beautiful flavour of introduction to the  games night, where escudos flowed eagerly across the boards.

The event in all had a slowish, easy pace. Nothing was rushed, there was plenty of time between each tournament for gentles to get in some practice or sparring or relax as they wished. I generally don't like to timetable things against each other, such as running a tournament and a class at the same time, as I do like watching everything that's going on, but there probably would be space to fit in a class or two if the same timetable format was repeated.

And how did it go for me? I had time to sew! An autocrat with a reputation for angsting and worring over every little thing, fretting even when nothing goes wrong because a part of me kinda enjoys it... I had time to relax, though that was likely in no small part due to the presence of my co-autocrat and my Governor of Games (delegation for the win). 

So I relaxed, and by relaxed I mean sewing. I decided to try out pleating on my red dress instead of the gathers of my black dress, and will have more details on those in a separate post. And as I mentioned in my last post, did I get the dress finished? Well, yes, kind of. It was wearable, but it wasn't finished. And I had promised myself I wouldn't rush these projects any more, so I decided not to wear it at all. It will be finished in plenty of time for Raglan though.

New Dress?

With the next event only 3 days away everything's a bit hectic in trying to make sure all my ducks are in a row. And yet I'm still trying to get the red dress that should have been done ages ago done for the weekend.

*sigh* I don't think I'll ever learn about last minute sewing.

Rest assured though, I am being supervised, and anything Suzie-supervised is bound to turn out well*. 










*Where "well" may mean covered in cat hair.

Layered Mint Cheesecake

Recently I shared a picture on my facebook page that seemed very popular indeed. Certainly the physical cake didn't last long at all.

Now, I shall preface this recipe by stating that it is not mine. It was generously shared some time ago on another social media long since abandoned, so I can't find the user name of the original poster. That said, should the owner find this recipe and decide they'd prefer it not to be posted, please contact me and I shall dutifully remove it. And on to the recipe:

Ingredients:
Base
287g chocolate cookies, crushed
57g butter

Cheesecake
3 x 227g packs of cream or soft cheese (this time out I used the lactose free philadelphia, which seemed to work quiet well)
172g caster sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
100g semi-sweet chocolate, melted (I prefer to use 70% cocoa chocolate)
1/2 teaspoon mint extract
Green food colouring

Method
1) Preheat the oven to 180oC and grease a 9" loose bottom cake tin.
2) Melt the butter and mix in the crushed biscuits. Press the mixture firmly into the tin and put into the freezer.
3) In a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese and sugar together well. Add the eggs, one at a time, incorporating well after each addition. Add the vanilla and beat well.
4) Take out a third of the mixture and mix mint extract and green food colouring into this portion.
5) In the remaining two thirds, add in the melted chocolate and stir well.
6) Spread a little less than half of the chocolate half of the mix over the cheesecake base and allow to chill for 10 minutes.
Note: This chilling is the magic step, this is what allows the layers to be poured separately to give that wonderful look when cut.
7) Add the mint layer, making sure to spread it gently so it covers the bottom chocolate later without disturbing it. Chill and add the final chocolate later in the same manner.
8) Cook the cheesecake for 44-55 minutes depending on your oven, but you may want to check it after 40. When cooked the cheesecake, insert a knife into the cake; if cooked, the knife will come out clean. Make sure to allow the cheesecake to cool somewhere warm (on top of the oven would be ideal) as if it cools too quickly, it may crack. This doesn't harm the cheesecake or the flavour, just takes away from the aesthetics.
9) Last, but most important, enjoy!

You can see from the recipe above, it would be very easy to substitute other flavours into this cake to make a variety of cakes.. must get around to trying a chocolate orange flavour one of these days...

First Yarns

What better way to spend a sunny bank holiday Monday, directly after an event which while not going to plan, was no less wonderful a weekend, in getting to know the new spinning wheel.

Two and a half years since my last attempt meant I had to turn to YouTube to find directions on how to get started, and even then there were many, many false starts before I managed to get everything working together. Funnily enough, it was when I kicked off my shoes so I could feel the treadle through nothing but my stockinged feet, just like last time, that it all worked smoothly. I'm hoping the same will hold true for my slippers when I'm in garb using the wheel. Oh well, if not it'll be an excuse to have some exceptionally pretty socks made up to show off.

I've started spinning using Ashford Merino Silk, which is 80% New Zealand Merino and 20% silk. I stopped here so I could divide the fibre, and make sure I only used half on this bobbin so I could ply it properly later. The yarn is coming out quite fine at the moment, though with the odd slub here and there, that it's enough to keep me hoping that it'll come out, when plied, as a nice fingering weight yarn, so I can knit up something pretty to show off.