London calling

Hello, despite appearance to the contrary I am still here, and I am still crafting. I've been busy at work, and away for the last two weekends, so I've been rather neglectful of HazWool. 

For the bank holiday weekend I was in London. London, always seems to be enjoying good weather when I'm there, and it was a very sunny weekend. I caught up with a number of friends I've not seen for ages. I went to see the Mousetrap, which I've never seen but greatly enjoyed. Plus I managed to sneak in a visit to Liberty. Its such a wonderful place, both the shop's design and what it sells. We were flying Ryanair, and I am still trying to decrease my stash, so I was very well behaved and did my best to just look. I did treat myself to a couple of little things, well it would be rude not too.

In other news I have been doing my best with my Me Made May '13 pledge, although I've done fairly well on keeping to the pledge, I have identified several holes in my wardrobe and I've not been great on taking photos, but here are some from week 1

 

Me Made May '13 Pledge

May is come soon, and 'So, Zo...' has again organised the excellent Me Made May challenge, to encourage crafty types to wear all the lovely things they make. For Self Stitched September '11 and Me Made May '12 I challenged myself to wear at least one item of self made clothing everyday for the month. This time I've decided to up the ante, and go for only self-made things for the whole of May, well with some minor exceptions.

 'I, Harriet of 'Haz Wool, Will Knit' blog sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '13. I will endeavour to wear only me-made or me-altered clothing (with the exception of underwear, tights and base layers, but I'll do my best on socks) for the duration of May 2013.'

Having decided to make this pledge, I then had a bit of a panic about if I had the wardrobe content to make this work? I had a look through my wardrobe and was pleasantly surprised at what I found.

I've certainly have a lot more me-made items in my wardrobe than this time last year, and there are more useful everyday items than there used to be. My main worry is that I never think about making tops and bottoms that work together, so there might be a lot of dresses and some oddly matched outfits. But if nothing else it will show me where the gaps in my wardrobe are!

Adventures in Breadmaking: Beer Barm Bread

I've been on a bit of a bread-making bonanza in the last couple of weeks, and have been reading a couple of my baking books in rather more detail than I have in the past. One of the things I found interesting was reading about medieval bakers using left over yeast from brewing, called barm, to leaven bread, I guess because it was the most readily available source of yeast.

As my boyfriend is a brewing obsessive enthusiast, yeast is not something we are short of. A whole shelf of the fridge is given up to his yeast farming activities. With all this yeast to hand, I thought I should give beer barm bread ago. 

As not everyone is unfortunate lucky enough to have a fridge half (15% at most) full of brewing yeast, none of my baking books could provide me with a recipe. They all had a version using beer to give the flavour, but using instant yeast. But a quick google and I had what I wanted. Adventures of a whole wheat pastafarian has a detailed post about making ale-barm bread, and I based my attempt on the instructions there. 

Beer-barm and flour starter after a night of bubbling away. I am reliably informed the yeast I used was WLP007 which had been used to brew some red kind of epic red ale. You can also see my new sour dough starter which really took off over the weekend.

 

Kneaded and ready to rise

 Ready for the second proving

 The final loaf

The final result? Well as you can see the loaf is a bit flat, and nothing like as pretty as this one. I think I made the dough a little to wet, and so it just spread out horizontally on the tray during the second proving, rather than growing up. A proving basket might have been a help here as well.

However, what it lacks in appearance it makes up for in taste. It does taste of beer, with a tangy bitterness which is really nice. Although I used just white bread flour, the bread looks almost like wholewheat as it has a more nutty brown colour. Its yummy toasted with butter, and would I think go really well with some strong cheese for lunch, something I'll have to try with my next loaf as we've gobbled it all up. So, yes, there will be another loaf, hopefully better shaped but no less tasty! I can also see there could be interesting experiments in what effect different strains of beer yeast would have on the taste of the bread.

Plus for historical accuracy I think I need one of these snazzy hats!

It fits to a T!

When I went to visit my friend in Belgium last year, she was on the hunt for a new teapot. We eventually tracked one down in the flea market in the Place du Jeu de Balle, which is just a fantastic market. I promised to make this smart little tea pot a snazzy cosy, and shamefully it took me nearly 5 months to finally knit this.
 

I had no excuse for the delay from worrying about the size of the pot, as I was sent this fantastic schematic.

I had some left over aran weight wool from this fair isle cardigan, and a quick search on ravelry brought up the perfect pattern - Kilcarra stripped cosy. The pattern is simple, quick and effective, and despite the recipient being a bit unconvinced about pompoms, I couldn't resist them. With the detailed measurements I had, I was delighted that the finished cosy was a perfect fit!

 

Phew ... its been a busy weekend!

I've had a busy time this weekend, but its been a good one. On Saturday morning we were up early(-ish) to head out to IKEA. While I like IKEA, I can find the whole experience a bit overwhelming, especially when its busy, but it wasn't too bad this weekend. We picked up what we were looking for, including two thin Billy bookcase. Once they were up, I spent a happy afternoon reorganising my books. I now have space for all my sewing and knitting books were I can see them, and all my cookery books are in the kitchen.

This last proved very helpful as I embarked on a baking frenzy on Sunday morning! I'd planned to make some bread and was looking for something to watch while I worked and found old episodes of The Great British Bake Off on BBC iplayer. My morning was complete, and it wasn't just bread I ended up baking.

Spelt and ale loaf from Dan Lepard's Short and Sweet

Chocolate cherry gingers from Alexa Johnston's Second Helpings. More from Ladies, a plate

I also made a very tasty rhubarb and ginger steamed pudding. Although delicious, it has a rum and ginger caramel sauce so how could it not be, it was extremely unphotogenic, so didn't make the cut!

Just to prove I am an ideal contestant for a Great British Bake Off Sewing Bee mash-up, I dusted the flour of my hands and picked up the needle. I've been without my sewing machine for over a week, as we had guests staying last week and everything sewing related had to be tidied away to make space. But, I'm back on the waggon now, so here is a sneaky peak of my latest project.

However, if I thought my weekend was busy it was nothing compared to Rochelle over at Lucky Lucille. Having organised the fantastic Sew for Victory Sew Along, Rochelle was a victim of her own success as she had nearly 500 photos in the flickr pool to sort through to put together the final project parade. You can see her lovely final video here. (Look out for a familiar face at the 3.28 minute mark).

Is sewing the new knitting? or should that be the new baking?

Over the last years as knitting has grown in popularity, there has been a noticeable increase in the number and variety of knitting magazine available; from part works teaching knitting to magazines stuffed full of beautiful and complicated designs. Over the last few months I have noticed that the knitting magazines are being joined by a new crop of sewing magazine. I bought my first sewing mag a few weeks ago, partly as I wanted the free pattern but also to see what it was like. While I don't think I'd buy one every week, I did find parts of it quite an interesting read and I'll certainly make one or two of the pattern.

It seems to me that this is part of a growing trend which has seen sewing regain its place in the popular hearts and minds. Its true it has not yet reached the point that people who find out about my sewing say 'ah yes, sewing ... that's becoming quite trendy now', which is the unvarying response I get when people find out I'm a knitter. 

Then what do you know, just to put the stamp on the place of sewing as the next big thing, the BBC transfer their popular British Bake Off format to The Great British Sewing Bee. The format is much the same, 8 sewing enthusiasts compete in a range of challenges to be crowed winner of the Sewing Bee, and avoid the weekly cull. As a huge fan of the Great British Bake Off and an avid home dress maker, you would think this would be the show for me. 

The contestants were a good mix, May and Patrick are more than adequate replacements for Mary and Paul, I can put up with Claudia (sorry she is no Mel & Sue), and the sewing room they work in makes me green with envy. However, while it was enjoyable, I have to agree with Sam Wollaston, and his girlfriend, in The Guardian that sewing just doesn't seem to make such good telly as baking. (Although I can see why sewing seemed a more sensible punt than knitting, can you imaging the tasks - you have 3 days to knit a cabled cardigan).

Don't get me wrong I did enjoy the show, and I'll certainly be watching again next week. I hope too, that the show might encourage people to take up sewing and find out the fun and creative outlet it can bring. Although it might be just as well for first timers not to have May and Patrick watching their every move, it would certainly make my foot quake on my sewing machine pedal! Also, while the programme includes a weekly 'how to make ...' section, I'm not sure how helpful it would be for a novice - they flew through how to make a laundry bag in a few seconds. 

Any one else watch the show? What did you think?

Sew for Victory Dress - the big reveal!

I've had this dress finished for about 10 days, but I was waiting for some nice weather to take photos. I was thinking a park, daffodils, the start of spring. Instead we have had days of torrential rain, followed by freezing temperatures and snow. I tried taking some pictures inside yesterday, but they didn't do justice to the dress. So today I braved the freezing temperatures as far as my backyard to get some daylight and hopefully better pictures. (You may be wondering why I am surrounded by kegs, I don't live in a brewery but as my boyfriend is a brewer it sometimes feels like it!)

Not wanting to be falsely modest I can safely say this one of my sewing project which I am most proud off. Partly because I knew I would be sharing pictures with lots of lovely fellow sewing bloggers I felt that I should up my game, as they would be able to see the little mistakes. Now, I'm sure they would all be far to kind to point them out, but I would know that they knew.

As a result I took a lot of time and care with this project, I made my first ever muslin (yikes!), learnt a number of new sewing techniques and skills and am happy to show the inside as well as the outside of the dress.

Inside out, and not a loose thread in sight!

Pattern:       Simplicity 3284, vintage 1939 pattern.

Fabric:     2.5m printed cotton (Hickeys), .5m of white cotton (The Cloth Shop), <.25m of suede (left over from my 1950s style belt).

Notions:     1m lace trim (A Rubanesque), 3x buttons (The Cloth Shop), 7" zip, vintage belt buckle (from stash).

 

I found the buckle in my stash, I think it came from my boyfriend's granny. 

I had to use it, but it took a while to find buttons to match

Does it look like the picture on the envelop?  Yes, I think it does.

Where the instructions easy to follow? Well, this is the first time I've worked with a vintage pattern, and well they didn't give instructions like they do now. 'Make bound button holes' - what use is that! Now luckily there are many useful tutorials that filled in the gaps, see below.

Pattern alterations? I didn't put the extra stiffening pieces into the shoulders, I felt they were puffy enough already. I also took about 4 inches of the bottom of the skirt - I knew that I would never wear it if it was mid-calf. It now sits nicely on the knee.

Would I make it again? Hum, yes I think I might. I really like the skirt shape, and the sleeves, but I might make some alterations to the bodice.

What did I learn from this project? What didn't I learn?!? I learnt how to work with vintage patterns, I learnt how to grade up patterns, using Casey's excellent tutorial. I made bound buttons holes for the first time, and inserted a side lapped zip under the tutelage of Gertie. 

Basically, I learnt a lot and got over many of my sewing fears! I've had this pattern and fabric matched up in my stash for over two years, but the Sew for Victory sew along pushed me into making it, and I certainly feel a lot more confident in my sewing ability than before. I also learnt what a lot of lovely sewing enthusiasts that are out there, and how encouraging and supportive they can be. Thank you ladies! 

Did it meet my sewing resolutions? Yes, I used up materials from my stash, and I learnt lots of new technique.