Making Elderflower Cordial

I am a relatively new Wiccan (last couple of years) and one of the things I am trying to do this year is mark each sabbat with some kind of appropriate ritual. I am not doing marvellously well so far, as I keep having a failure of imagination, and then we end up just lighting a candle and focusing on it. And I have to ask partner to light the candle as I am scared of matches (I am, really) and he can be quite sarcastic. Anyway, for the summer solstice (I am preparing in advance) I am making elderflower cordial to use in some kind of ritual. Because if anything is the taste of midsummer, it is elderflower cordial. The ritual may end up being, drink the elderflower cordial and say ‘hooray, it’s the summer solstice’, but even if we get no further than that I think it is a good way to celebrate. So, today I have been out foraging for elderflowers in Milton Country Park. Because I am scared of the whole concept of foraging and secretly feel I will be arrested, I have been doing a number of recces to see where the elderflower trees are. Well, I hadn’t found all that many, but today I went with my secateurs and there seemed to be hundreds, so clearly today was the day to do it (but there were also loads of police! I don’t know what had happened, but they didn’t arrest me, so they clearly had higher priorities than a shifty-looking woman snipping furtively at trees.)

In case you want to do this yourself but are unsure what an elderflower tree looks like, there is one I photographed earlier at the top of this post. (If I am wrong and it isn’t, please let me know. I am saving some of the cordial for my brother who is being brave enough to host a Family Gathering in July, and let me assure you that at the moment it wouldn’t be a good thing for him to be innocently giving aged relatives anything hallucinogenic.) The trees didn’t seem to have any scent when I was snipping them, but when I got the flowers home they were quite heady. I am following this recipe from Self-Sufficientish, which is one of my favourite websites, and it seems to be going well so far. Here are the flowers when I had put them in my multi-purpose large pan (I encouraged the larger of the beetles to relocate elsewhere):

And here is the mixture when I had added the lemon, sugar, citric acid, and water:

They sell citric acid in chemists, and it is not expensive. I think mine was £1.20 and it seems to last a while so you probably don’t have to buy it new every year (you only need a bit). I must now leave my cordial for five days, stirring it twice a day, and then I strain it and bottle/ freeze it. I think I may freeze some to have with champagne at the Winter Solstice.

And to end, a preview of what I’ve been working on today:

As I cut these fabrics out, I progressed through these thoughts: Oh God this isn’t going to look right/ Oh God they look rubbish next to each other/ Bugger, I will have to buy another colour to pull them together/ Oh I can’t even be bothered to finish/ Wow! It looks amazing!/ I won’t want to sell it!

It’s strange how you don’t entirely know what patchwork is going to look like until you’ve actually got everything cut out and arranged. I imagine that’s very good psychologically for people who are controlling, like me.

In which I learn a new skill.

OK. So today I bit the bullet and I decided I would learn how to sew buttonholes. Because it is completely ridiculous not being able to sew buttonholes when actually I can sew quite well. As the author of one of the first books I bought on sewing (which I am not naming, pls note restraint), many many years ago, says, if you can’t sew buttonholes or zips you’re restricted to ‘making sack-like things’. Actually this is completely untrue and, I have to say, a bit rich coming from someone who has written a book where it is suggested that you may wish to sew 4 placemats together to make a jacket:

I think, actually, this book is the reason I didn’t learn to sew properly a long time ago: I think I felt subliminally that as soon as I reached a certain level of competence someone would come round and force me to make this:

or to customise my husband’s shirts in a winsome fashion. And I haven’t got a husband! In fact, this book’s probably why I didn’t learn to sew buttonholes earlier as well. Yes, it’s all the book’s fault! (Can I blame it for the serger incident? Hmm. Might have to think a bit harder about that one.)

Anyway, here they are:

These were my very first attempts and look, they look like buttonholes. So if there is anyone out there who is scared of buttonholes, you don’t have to be. You do have to be scared of sergers: you have to be really scared. You need iron nerves and the sewing competence of one of those women who sews couture Chanel in a Parisian atelier sustained only by the consciousness of her own superiority and the occasional croissant before you should be let near a serger. But buttonholes are fine. Nothing can go wrong. Trust me. And now I can make jackets! (But I’m sorry, I won’t be making them out of placemats. Call me conventional...)

My rainy weekend, in pictures

In my continuing attempt to Break Gimp’s Spirit, I thought I’d have a go at a collage. It’s not perfect so I’m trusting you not to magnify it to 200% or something and laugh at the joins. That would be mean.



My rained-out weekend in pictures, left to right

1/ Wholesome things in bags in the Wholefood Co-operative. But they don’t sell Borax, which was what I was looking for. Never mind though, I’ve tracked some down to Greenshop.co.uk (partner says, since I can never buy the things I want anywhere but have to track them down online, that should tell me something.)
2/ A snail, wandering across the garden after the rain.
3/ Sky after rain, seen through the cherry tree in the garden.
4/ Cold enough to wear My First Handknitted Socks. This was before I realised you could line up the colour repeats so your socks bore some vague relation to each other. Seen with the frill of a skirt I bought from From The Fig Tree on etsy. As I love that skirt I feel compelled to say to you that it looks very attractive when I don’t wear it with stripey socks.
5/ Poppadums, to eat before Spicy Lentil Soup, in front of repeats of Coach Trip.
6/ CD s to listen to while sewing. We are old skool here, in fact we still have a turntable. Rock Heroes (patchworking to Bonnie Tyler), The Felice Brothers, Pink Martini. If you are the only person in the world who hasn’t listened to this Pink Martini CD I must warn you against it because it has a song on it that is so catchy you will never get rid of it but will wander for years like a wraith muttering ‘et puis, je fume’. Save yourself.
7/ A crochet cushion I'm working on, with this month's Good Food magazine. Sadly the nice cakes in Good Food magazine don't seem to cook themselves through osmosis, I think there needs to be some effort.
8/ Pins!
9/ Rain on the window. Never mind, though: je veux seulement oublier. Et puis, je fume. (I don’t, I’m too boring.)

Hopefully there will be some sun tomorrow. Do you know what I’m going to do if there is? Pick elderflowers and make cordial (partner: ‘You can buy it in a bottle in shops, you know’.)

The best salmon sandwiches

When I was a teenager I used to work at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. I wore a maid’s outfit and served ice creams in one of the kiosks, and I also helped out in the restaurant. A woman once stopped me and told me I had ‘the most Victorian eyebrows’, and it has been a theme throughout my life that people feel free to tell me whatever they think of my appearance whenever and wherever the fancy takes them. Sometimes the things they say are flattering, sometimes they are not. Normally they are equivocal at best. With blood relatives and medical professionals it is an absolute free for all, as they can poke me for emphasis. I don’t know why it is, as you wouldn’t look at me in the normal course of things and think, she looks like she can have no possible anxieties about her appearance, I shall go and tell her what I think about her feet. Perhaps I will start doing the same and will stop people in the street and say, gosh what an amazing beard, do you brush it. It would no doubt be very freeing. Anyway, the two things I loved about Chatsworth (the thing I didn’t love was the hereditary privilege, natch) were the beautiful fluffy-footed chickens that the Duchess kept and which roamed about the grounds, and the poached salmon sandwiches in the kiosk which we weren’t supposed to eat for lunch but did. This remains one of my favourite things to do with leftover salmon. I am not sure it is very thrifty to have leftover salmon to start with, but, if you do have leftover salmon, this is a much better thing to do with it than throw it away.

This isn’t really a recipe, it’s a ‘best way to do the salmon sandwich from experience’ type thing.

I cook the salmon (or trout) like this: I put 2 steaks or fillets in foil, with olive oil, tarragon (dried is ok) and bay leaves (about 2 leaves per steak.) I would put a splash of white wine in as well if I could prise the bottle away from my partner. Cook the steaks/ fillets only for long enough that they are no longer opaque: I did mine last night at 160 degrees C for about 15 minutes and they definitely didn’t need any longer. Take them out before they’re ready, if necessary, and let them finish cooking in the foil. Save about half-2/3 of a steak for each sandwich. Then the next day (having put the leftovers carefully in the fridge overnight, i.e. you eat some for dinner) make the sandwich with: 2 thick slices granary bread (this has to be homemade), mayonnaise spread thinly on each slice (this ought to be homemade as well, I’m sorry to be prescriptive. I do use Hellmann's as well, though, and it’s fine so long as you’ve got decent bread), the salmon/ trout, flaked with a fork, watercress, and salt. Then cut into quarters and eat.

I don’t know if this is my favourite sandwich, but it’s probably up there in the top five. What’s yours?

Patchwork Without Commitment

I've had fun today making tiny patchwork cushions to put in the shop.

It was great: it was Patchwork Without Commitment, trying out ideas I might want to make into something bigger one day. And they're brightening up the craft room, sitting there waiting for their openings to be whip stitched, bright little puddles of colour. And I used up some of the scrap bag, which is great: I'd always rather the scrap bag turned in to something nice than got thrown away. (And also, the Scrap Bag does sometimes threaten to overwhelm. In fact sometimes this room feels like one big Scrap Bag with me sitting in the middle trying to stay afloat.)

It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be done (eventually)

When I was small, I used to like drawing pictures of people. I used to sit happily with my packet of felt pens and a pile of paper, and I used to take a sheet of paper off the top of the pile and, at the top, draw the outline of a head. And then I would sit back and consider. Perhaps the head wasn’t quite the right shape: perhaps it was too close to the top of the paper: perhaps my felt pen line overlapped slightly where it met. Whatever it was, if it wasn’t perfect, I would put the sheet of paper to one side, take another one from the top of the pile, and start again. Eventually we had a pile of discarded paper with outlines of heads at the top. Dad took them to work, cut the heads off with a guillotine, and gave the pile of (slightly smaller) paper to another child. Who wasn’t completely neurotic.

Because let me tell you, perfectionism on this level doesn’t work as a character trait. It most certainly doesn’t bring happiness. It brings paralysis, and a pile of unfinished things. But I am self aware, and I fight it. Ha! Take that, unhelpful perfectionism! One of the things I do, is I force myself to finish things. Even if they are not perfect. Even if they are really, really not going to end up perfect. Like the Granny Square That Grew And Grew. I’m going to accept that this is never going to be bigger than a lap blanket. I’m going to accept that if I buy enough yarn to finish it I’m going to have to take out a second mortgage. So I’m going to finish it with a beige – yes, beige – border. And then I’m going to weave in the ends, and I’m going to use it. I’m sure it’ll be good for me (I’m not saying this through gritted teeth. Honestly).

It's been beautiful in the garden today. The yellow tree (I don’t know what it’s called) is doing its yellow tree thing.

And the roses are starting to come out: they’re mostly still in bud, but they’ll all be out soon. I live in a house with roses round the window: I’m very lucky. (They aren’t all perfect: some of them have been nibbled by something or other. They’re still beautiful, though. Look, I’m trying!)

Finding Inspiration

I have a collection of old craft books. I love them because often they have useful notes on techniques, and unusual ideas. I always think, there are no bad crafts, there’s only bad execution and styling. For example:

No, I’m not sure I’m going to be wearing this down the pub, either. But perhaps integrated into a tshirt? In purple? A bit more angular? Hmm, I’d better get sewing some tshirts so I can experiment.

But sometimes the execution is pretty ropey.

Is it an advert for Dodgy Trunks? Should I be admiring the regularity of the thigh hair? Why, no. It’s the setting chosen by the writers of Stitch By Stitch: a home library of sewing, knitting, crochet and needlecraft to show off their crocheted poncho patterns. Writers of Stitch By Stitch: I imagine you were trying to sex up crochet. Did this work, writers of Stitch By Stitch? Did it? Really?

I’ve got a crocheted poncho! And now I’m going off to pose behind a man in dodgy trunks! No, it’s not what I initially envisaged when I told everyone I was going to be a model. But I couldn’t wait for Vogue to ring forever, you know, I had to earn a living. And every time I ring mum she tells me I ought to come home and be a secretary. It's all very trying. Poncho! Yes, I am emoting, thankyou. Poncho, Yay!

And then yesterday I bought a new book - Homemade. I walked past Heffers feeling miserable: it was a bad combination. It’s a nice book, but it’s essentially Domestic Porn. You know what I mean; beautiful pictures, but nothing challenging: iPod covers out of expensive yarn, cupcakes, that kind of thing. It’s got some nice ideas, and I do like that kind of book sometimes, but mostly I like books that have difficult-looking diagrams and/ or instructions to wear goggles. I’m more of a Radical Craft girl, myself. I like to expand my skill set.

But I did like this skirt very much (you can’t see very well, sorry – I had to prop the book open with my elbow while I took the photo.) It’s made of odds and ends of patchworked shirts, and it’s a plain aline shape. I like the juxtaposition of the smart shape with the scruffy fabric. Well, funnily enough, I’ve just cleared out another cupboard - and I’ve found some old shirts. Another project for the list?