Blackcurrant

This year we had a good crop of blackcurrant - 750 grams, to be precise :)  

Unfortunately, it's very sour, so it doesn't get eaten... After watching the bowls full of blackcurrant standing for the second day untouched, I decided to do something with it. I thought I would try a recipe from my "Concise Encyclopedia of Household" ("Краткая энциклопедия домашнего хозяйства"), 1984. This recipe doesn't involve any boiling, so the blackcurrant retains all the summery flavour and taste better than regular jam. My only concern is the storage: it's supposed to survive at room temperature for months, but I am not sure I will risk that, so probably will keep it in the fridge.
 It's very simple: clean the berries from the stems, leaves and other rubbish, wash them, dry and then pound with a wooden spoon or a pestle (which looks a little like a miniature baseball bat). I added an extra step here: because our blackcurrant is so unbearably sour, I added 1 teaspoon of baking soda to neutralize the acidity. I've seen this in the recipes using rhubarb, which can also be too acidic. After mixing in the baking soda, I had to wait a little, until it stopped foaming - about 10 min. The resulting mass is then mixed thoroughly with sugar - 1.5 parts of sugar for 1 part of blackcurrant.

For my precious 750 grams  I used 1.125 kg of sugar. The mix is then poured into sterile jars (I boiled mine for about 5 minutes). In the recipe it says to cover the mix with a 1 cm layer of sugar in the jar before closing the lid. I forgot to do that, so now it definitely stays in the back of the fridge...

Hoffman Challenge doll finished!

At last! The idea of a Chinese Circus doll transformed somewhat into a dainty lady with an umbrella and a butterfly on her hand.
Yesterday I dyed the remnants of a mongolian sheep cushion cover black, and today the hair was attached (with a needle-felting tool), arms, legs and head attached too, face painted, butterfly made, umbrella spokes and handle painted and umbrella attached to the hand and the shoulder...

 I decided to ditch the unicycle, because it would have taken ages to make it actually stand with the doll on top of it, and also because I broke the saddle while fiddling with it.

Cloth doll exhibition

The Warwickshire Open Studios is getting nearer!
And I still have not properly organized myself...

But at least the poster is done:

Here are more details from the Warwickshire Open Studios website.


Please come and see the dolls and also please share with any doll/textile enthusiasts!

Birthday badge

It was our big little girl 8th birthday recently. She wanted a birthday badge, and we decided to make one ourselves. Here is the original design:

And this is what came out of it:

The birthday girl picked the fabric (felt) and ribbon and the "gemstones". She gathered the ribbon and the felt and placed the "gems". I did the "8" by freehand machine embroidery with silver, golden and green thread (although only golden can be seen), stuck the gems with a glue gun and hand-stitched the ribbon frill to the badge. The now 8 year old proudly wore it to school, and I think it was a success!

Hoffman Challenge 2014 doll

It's time to seriously get to work on the Hoffman Challenge doll. Just to explain: Hoffman is a Californian company that makes beautiful fabrics, and every year for the last ~25 years they run a competition. One fabric is chosen, from which a quilt, or an accessory, or a doll have to be made. This is this year's fabric:

It's beautiful, but it took me a long time to settle on an idea for a doll. My initial idea was a voluptious African lady in a traditional style dress with a headscarf:

Then someone said that the fabric screams Japanese, and I thought - yes it does! The graphic pattern on the background parts looks like little umbrellas, and the flowers and butterflies all fit the Japanese theme... But then the large and bright mandala circles were almost impossible for me to place... So I thought: maybe a hippie - a flower child, wearing ripped blue jeans and with these circles decorating the front of the T-shirt? Anyway, all this completely threw me off the African idea (but I am going to use it for a doll later, it just needs a bit more development).
But now  I finally know exactly what I am doing. The main inspiration is Chinese State Circus performances, which we've seen three time and enjoyed immensely! There were girls on unicycles, and also girls on a tight rope with an umbrella. I am going to combine the two images and make a Chinese Circus performer on a unicycle with an umbrella! Here is my inspiration board on Pinterest.