Crafternoon Tea with Grannyg

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Intro

It’s been a while since the last podcast, Granny’s been on holiday. Podcasting on the go was a bit too ambitious as she drove over 3000km in nine days. G discusses the wonderful places she visited in New Zealand, she especially enjoyed Dunedin (where Jayshree is living now) and its Larnach Castle & Gardens. She especially enjoying visiting crafty places: Milton’s Mill which is now run by ; Qualityarns, the Oamaru
Textile Exchange and Ashford’s.
Genny spent Saturday with James at Joy of Yarn in Greytown for the Annual JOY Weekend. In baking related news in Greytown Genny loved the Le Pommier French Bakery and James’ partner Ian’s Coconut Loaf.

Crafting this week

Wee bit of knitting on the Secret project & some sewing on PJs.

Interview with Peg Moorhouse

Peg’s website is Peg Moorhouse Weaver, she’s a damask weaver. She recently exhibited at COCA. Peg was involved
in the World of Wearable Art in its infancy and she’s donated her first exhibited in the very first show held in a tent in Nelson. She mentions Nelson’s celebs such as WOWA founder Suzie Moncrief and cafe entrepeneur Eelco Boswijk

In the Tins

Genny really enjoyed baking with Ian from JOY who taught her a no-knead,
no-rise bread recipe

Five Grain Bread: Easy & No kneading – Recipe
4 teaspoons of dried yeast
One teaspoon of raw sugar
850mL of warm water
¼ cup of rye
¼ cup of flaxseed
¼ cup of wheat germ
¼ cup of millet
2 teaspoons of salt
2 cups of plain white flour
4 cups of wholemeal flour
1 egg, lightly beaten

Sprinkle the yeast and sugar over the warm water and leave to dissolve (stir once or twice)
Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl and stir through to mix, make a well in the centre drop in the beaten egg and then pour in the yeast mix (looks like a porridge mix)
Pour the mixture into 2 greased loaf tins and put into a COLD oven. turn the oven onto 200 degrees celcius and cook for about 50 -60 minutes untill the loaves sound hollow when tapped. Cool in tins for 5 minutes and turn onto cooling racks.

Essay: My Fibre Night in Dunedin

Genny talks about visiting a knit group in Dunedin which isattended by previous interviewees Morag & Stella. She talks to Ngairie about her knitting t-shirt business.

Secret Project

Going well, should have it done by when its due.

Conclusion

Genny encourages people to post comments on the site!

Intro

Genny’s main focus at the moment is preparing for Jay’s departure.

Crafting this week

Granny’s been working on the secret project and sewing. She’s been making pyjamas for her granddaughters and encourages sewers to get their sewing machines serviced as its made a huge difference to her. She got her’s done at the Pakarunga Bernina Centre.

Genny taught Livvy to sew using stretchy floral cotton on the weekend of the 3rd. They used the New Look pattern number 6813. She taught Livvy the techniques of using patterns, laying out the fabric, lining up the pieces and understanding the pattern ‘hieroglyphics’. As a beginner sewer Olivia found the advanced techniques tricky like putting in the zip, sew the waistband and using the overlocker. She felt disappointed that she didn’t do some of the work and Genny suggests she buy some cheaper fabric to try it out herself.

In the Tins

A banana cake! A staple of the Granny household, using ripe bananas, spotty to rotten but not mouldy. There is discussion on the Ravelry board about New Zealand’s fumigation policy meaning that bananas are not ripening the same. Granny makes her cakes in loaf tins as this makes them very portable. Her go to recipes are the Edmond’s cookbook recipe and from Dorie Greenspan. As she had six bananas she didn’t have enough sour cream to make the Greenspan recipe so weent with Edmond’s.

Edmonds Banana cake recipe

[Recipe here]

Cream butter and sugar till butter is white and mix is fluffy, add eggs one at a time. Mash bananas seperately and stir into wet ingredients. Boil milk in the microwave and store in the baking soda, which will come up foamy. Granny’s doubled recipe made three loaves. This recipe can also be used for muffins or cupcakes. The size of the tin predisposes the length of cooking time, remember to preheat to 180 degrees. This mixture isn’t a high riser, Granny half filled her loaf tins. They took 45 – 55min to cook. Edmond’s suggests using lemon icing, also nice are cream cheese or chocolate butter icing.

Banana cakes aren’t Granny’s fave, more a necessity. She finds that banana cakes can be a bit tickly, perhaps the baking soda or overripe bananas. Mr T found the cake too soft and moist, so would break when held to eat.

As Granny’s out and about for her holiday she thinks she might talk about a cafe that she visits. She’s planning another afternoon with Jasmine to discuss baking.

Secret Project

Granny describes knitting the sleeves of the jacket and errors that result in brilliance. She’s finalised her items, a jacket, dress and hat. The underneath dress will be a seamless top down raglan or circular yoke with a small funnel neck and capped sleeves, fitted around the upper torso going out to an A-line knee length. The third accessory will be a sideways knitted slouchy hat.

Conclusion

Genny can’t wait to see what the next two podcasts will be like. She hopes to have lots of time for recording with her new iPhone microphone dongle on her roadtrip.

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Happy New Year!! Welcome 2010 it’s good to see you!

Intro

Granny G discusses New Zealand holiday dates for 2009/2010, she’s off for a family road trip to the South Island. Christmas celebrations are discussed and crafty gifts. G’s organising the house for a new boarder and reorganising her craft room. Granny has relaxed by reducing the amount of crafting and baking she has done.

Crafting this week

Super secret knitting project to be the main focus, will now have a Super Secret Update section. G’s been making dresses for Jayshree and her sewing machine was overwhelmed. She’s got very keen on elastic. Granny has decided to not take on any new crafts as she is impressed by Meg’s dedication to her one craft.

Interview with Meg

Meg Nakagawa’s Website, which has a blog post about the interview with a few more things she wanted to say and a gallery with lots of beautiful pictures of her work plus links to her exhibitions. Meg is a professional weaver who lives in Nelson. When she started becoming a full time weaver she worked through the book The Artist’s Way.

Meg jokes that she learnt everything about New Zealand from Kim Hill, she hosts the Saturday morning show on our main public brodcasting radio station Radio New Zealand National.

Meg’s first public weaving event was a workshop at the Marlborough Weavers.

Secret Project

Project to be entered in Creative Fibre’s Fashion Parade. Genny’s been spinning Gottland fleece and plans to knit a jacket in the dark fleece, a dress or skirt in grey and an accessory item. She describes her design process and knitting so far.

Conclusion

G is happily still in holiday mode. Granny thanks Celeritas2 (that’s me) for doing notes for the show.

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Hello!  Welcome back friends.  This week has been a lot of fun as usual!

I have some great news – I have my first volunteer and here is the result of her hard work, my show notes!
Crafting this week

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The random number generator came up with “5″ and the 5th comment was….

Congratulations Rachelle – I’ll email you for your address! and hopefully have it to you in time for some Xmas spinning.

	Rachelle Crosbie	Submitted on 2009/11/20 at 2:29pm I would love to win a copy of Pat’s book, she was one of the judges of my yarn for the correspondence course I did.

Hello!

Welcome to episode 12, we talk with Margaret Stove today – I had such a wonderful chat with her and came away completely fizzing with inspiration.  There is a lovely cheesecake for you in the tins and I get a little bossy..

sit back, pour yourself another cuppa and enjoy!

We’ll see you next week.

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Oooh Granny’s getting older!  She needed lots of Nana naps this week, so it’s not a full episode.  But it’s still a great one!

Enjoy!  Back to full throttle next week

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Hello! It’s now end of November according to NZ time so the winner is…..

comment number 6! suetheslowknitter!  well done – I’ll be contacting you for your address soon!

Hello my lovelies! How are you this week?

It has been fun getting this episode together for your again, I hope you enjoy it as well!

Here are the links relating to todays discussions;

Needlefood

Twist collective

Touch Yarns

Dorie Greenspan baking book

Marvellous!  See you next week.

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As promised!

Grannyg’s world famous xmas cake

Stage 1

Mix the following altogether in a large, lidded container

3kg dried fruit       -          combination to your taste – with at least half being a mixture of sultanas/raisins/currants, the balance comprised of any dried fruit you enjoy, chopped into small or medium pieces.  (make sure that only maximum of ¼ is of soft gooey fruit, i.e prunes or figs)

400gm brown sugar

4 citrus fruits          -     zest and juiced (zest = grating off skin)

Spices                         -     approximately 2 tablespoons your choice of “sweet” spices, cinnamon, allspice, mixed spice.  Smaller quantities of nutmeg, cardamom, ginger if desired. Quantity can be more or less according to your taste.  You can add spice last and taste as you go for desired flavour.

700ml booze             -      Rum, Brandy or Whiskey – cheap stuff is good!  You can blend with Cointreau, Drambuie etc, but beware of creamy liqueurs that may go off.

Let soak for at least one week, preferably one month.  Can be soaked for years!

Stage 2

Preheat oven to 110oC

Prepare tins – grease and line metal tins with baking paper.  Or use paper case cake tins available from kitchen shops

Set aside any fruit mixture you wish to keep for other uses.

For every 1kg of mixture use the following batter;

100gm     butter melted

2              eggs whisked

¾ cup      flour sifted

Mix butter and eggs through fruit, ensuring fruit has no clumps and is all separated.  Add flour and mix through.

Amount of flour will depend on how liquid the fruit mix is.  You may need to add more flour or you may need to add another egg or some booze to ensure fruit is coated with batter.

You want a batter that is as thick as a normal cake batter but only just coats the fruit.

Spoon into tins, ensuring all corners are well filled and no gaps remain.  Smooth the top with back of spoon.  Decorate now with glace fruit and nuts if desired or else leave plain.

Bake for approximately 4-5 hours until cake is firm and looks cooked.  Once out of oven douse it with “feeding” alcohol.  Choose a spirit that you like for “feeding” the cake, you will need to sprinkle the cake with this once a week up until 1 or 2 weeks prior to eating time.  You probably need no more than 4 “feeds”  – I have a cake that is a year old and is still good, it was fed 4 times.

It is preferable to store the cakes in a closed but not entirely airtight tin – like proper “tins”.  But if you only have airtight tins, allow the cake to have a little open lid time a few days prior to eating.  Wrapped in a tea towel etc.  If cake is too moist for xmas day, a day in the fridge will dry it out just fine.

There you have it!  Listen to episodes 8 and 9 for more tips and tricks.

Use, distribute (but please attribute) change it around, make it yours and have fun!

xmas cake kisses from your hairy old grannyg!