Mastercrafts - my thoughts!

On Friday night I invited some friends over for a Mastercrafts party to watch the tears and tangles I got myself in to on the show! Capturing seven weeks of filming into one hour of television was always going to be a difficult task but they had to edit it, and in the same way, here are my edited thoughts!

Firstly my final piece above. We were given a choice of 16 colours of yarn to choose from and remarkably we all opted for different colour schemes. Although I stuck with my signature bold brights, on close inspection I also put in some more subtle greys to break up the 'jewel' inspired colour scheme. We had just seven days to weave our fabric, I spend five of those setting up the loom, they were extremely testing times and at one point I came very close to giving up but I stuck with it!

Our previous task was to weave a product to sell at the Hereford Crafts Fair, I made two silk laptop cases with yarns I had hand dyed in my own colours and used the scraps to make handwoven greeting cards.

I was very sad that in his voiceover Monty said that Holly was the only person who sold something at the fair, I sold two cards....so what Monty said was a total LIE : (

It took me two days to warp wind 6 metres of yarn to make my final piece. This was done outdoors, it may look sunny but it was freezing cold - we filmed the show in October and November and what's more I was all alone while others were snug indoors!

Ironing and steaming the final fabrics was an essential part of finishing off the woven fabrics.

My laptop cases were inspired by the gorgeous natural Autumnal shades that were all around me. Aubergine, mustard, oranges, browns ........it was the first time I'd ever seen the proper beauty of Autumn, in London it doesn't happen this way, leaves seem to fall off trees overnight but in the countryside I saw the changes over the whole season.

The yarns on the chair are the ones I hand dyed, I mixed these with some of the many lovely colourful yarns we had in our studio.

To inspire me I created lots of mood boards and surrounded myself in colours. Rather than being dictated to by a set pattern I did my own form of 'mood weaving' - I put on my headphones to block out distractions and totally zoned out while I was weaving.

One of the most difficult things that I had to deal with was sleep deprivation - we worked non stop, including evenings and weekends. Twice when the other two went home I stayed behind beyond midnight trying my hardest to catch up and one weekend they both went home to have a break while I again stayed back and worked my socks off. Needless to say by the penultimate day I was so exhausted I decided to stay in my pjs; nothing beats the home comforts of wearing slippers and a dressing gown, especially when the barn itself was so cold!

This is a a close up of my final piece, it doesn't just have the basic plain weave, I also incorporated some more complex boxes. I wove and wove until I physically couldn't do anymore. The yarn was very fine, continued to get knotted and broke very easily. Each time I moved the work to allow for the fabric to grow, it took 45 minutes to reset it and then I had keep winding bobbins to go inside the wooden shuttle that you can see in the picture, this is what you carry in and out of the warp threads to create the weave.

Pictured here on the last day is me with the other trainees Holly and Tref and Aiyor from the production crew - he kept me sane by playing Primal Scream when I felt down, bought me lots of Innocent Veg pots when I was hungry and made me endless cups of peppermint tea to keep warm!

The aftermath

A lot of people have contacted me and asked me if I would weave again. By the end of the experience I did learn how to set up a loom and how to weave so to lose that skill would be wrong. I don’t have access to a loom now but if I saw one I’m sure I would want to have a go. Long term I plan to do an evening class in weaving which will hopefully be a much less stressful experience!

Hearing feedback about the show has been really interesting, especially where I have been mentioned. On one end of the spectrum, there are people who sympathised with me and understood my frustrations – one person even told me she was so emotionally exhausted watching the show she needed to lie down afterwards. On the other end of the scale I’ve read people say that I came across as a very lazy person. Who’d have thought a Friday night TV show about crafting could be so controversial!

Most of my memories of the experience are still very clear in my mind and seeing them visually was a bit like having my private thoughts suddenly projected on a TV screen without me knowing. But I'm glad that throughout it I stuck to my beliefs - weaving is this instance may not have been for me but I am very open to trying it again one day under slightly more normal circumstances.

If you missed the show it is still available to view on BBC Iplayer in the UK:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00rl51q/Mastercrafts_Weaving/

Hmmmm, teatime!

When my friend Johnathan invited me around for 'Sunday Lunch on a Saturday' I was determined to keep up with his culinary expertise and produce something equally as stunning for dessert. It gave me a chance to finally try out the recipe in the Hummingbird Cookbook that has been taunting me for a year. The Raspberry Cheesecake Brownie looks amazing in the pictures but the trouble is I hate recipes. I just can't follow them. But I tried my absolute best and something amazing was created - although true to form, I didn't stick to the recipe, there were a few strays....

What you need:

200g melted plain chocolate (1 whole bar)

200g melted unsalted butter

500g icing sugar (1 whole box!)

5 eggs

110g plain flour

400g cream cheese (2 pots)

teaspoon of vanilla extract

300ml whipping cream (2 pots)

2 punnets of raspberries

Start by mixing and whisking up 1/2 box of sugar and the butter until it's lovely and smooth. I found melting the butter in advance which the book didn't suggest a much easier option.

Next beat in 3 eggs, add one at a time. This was my first mishap, I added all 5 eggs at once : (

Then melt the chocolate by breaking into pieces and placing in a heatproof container over a pan of boiling water. Add it to the mixture and stir well. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper and then pour the mixture on top.

Next make the cheesecake layer. Beat the cheesecake mixture with 2 eggs (this meant my dessert ended up with 7 eggs in total!!) Mix in 150g sugar, again I didn't notice this and added the remaining 1/2 box by mistake.......

Pour it ontop of the brownie and bake at 150 degrees or gas mark 3 for 40 minutes until set.

Allow to cool and then put in fridge overnight.

In the morning whisk 1 punnet of raspberries into the cream until it's lovely and thick. The recipe suggested adding 100g of sugar here but as i'd already added it to the cheese I left it out, the sharpness of the raspberries went well with the sweeter base. Then place it in fridge until it's needed and top with raspberries to decorate. It produced over 20 slices!

The verdict???????? Well only one person asked for a second slice but then again we also had a lovely lemon drizzle cake and the main was so good there wasn't much space for pud. But I was proud...if you look closely below you can see the coloured layers.

This morning I had some leftovers, they were quite stodgy but still very tasty and I feel less mystified about the whole following a recipe malarky.

On another notes I LOVED the Blacksmiths episode of Mastercrafts, it was my favourite to date, the gates they produced were really impressive, they were all worthy winners : )

"Mastercrafts The Book"

The postman woke me up in the early hours with two very exciting pieces of post, the book 'Mastercrafts' to accompany the new BBC Series that I am soon to be on and a picture drawn by my 4 year old niece depicting all my favourite things (Note the cupcakes and pretty dress!)

Published by the brilliant David & Charles (brilliant because they publish lots of wonderful

crafty titles) the book is celebration of the six crafts that feature in the series - stonework, thatching, woodwork, glass, metalwork and weaving. A beautiful 256 page hard back book, its a bit like an encyclopedia of the crafts in question.

The book is written by Tom Quinn, a writer and historian who knows a lot about the countryside. However this is where I started to get a bit frustrated. The book is about re-discovering British Craftmanship of which I am a passionate advocate, and despite how informative and interesting the content, the cover is atrocious. I honestly think it's one of the worst craft book covers I've ever seen (and having been the editor of a crafts magazine I have seen a lot of craft books). It panders to every stereotype you could possibly think of to do with country crafts making it extremely unappealing, if it doesn't sell well, I wouldn't be surprised if the cover is to blame. Hence this is why I have covered it up with my niece's drawing.

But of course, never judge a book by it's cover, give it a chance.......

Each chapter begins with the history of the craft exploring the origination of raw materials, how the craft has developed, going into alot of detail which makes it the ideal book for college libraries to help with research - there is information here that is impossible to find in other places.

The book also includes some photos of the trainees who took part in the TV series and interviews with the 'mastercraft' tutors. Can you spot me? Sadly from the aforementioned 256 there are just two photos of me in it (and three photos of my hands!). The day the book photographer came I was working on my own outside for 12 hours, the two shots that are in the book were 'test shots' taken in doors. But the most disappointing aspect of the whole book is the fact NONE of the trainees have their names mentioned.

In the way the that I can't understand why they chose the hideous cover, I can't understand why they haven't mentioned our names, even a simple 'thank you' in the back would have been nice. They have thanked the production company, the tutors, and Monty the presenter but not the 18 people who gave up their lives for 6 weeks to take part in the show. It's not like they didn't know our names, we all signed release forms. It's just plain mean.

And on that note my final verdict of this book is that it's an excellent resource for people who want to know more about the specific crafts in question and may be considering taking it up themselves and students who are studying crafts but with it's uninspiring cover I don't think it will appeal to today's new breed of modern hip crafter which is a real shame : (

Mastercrafts Review: Episode 1

Charles Hooper, one of the trainees who didn't quite 'Master' the craft

It seemed quite surreal that Mastercrafts was finally on our screens. Being part of the show (I'm appearing on the Weaving show in Week 6, 19 March), I was keen to see how they squeezed our 6-7 week journey's into a mere few minutes. It's therefore hard to be objective as I feel as though I should defend the show as much as possible, but then again, I was also a viewer and in that respect this is what I truly thought. (And as hard as it's going to be I'm not going to reference my experience just yet, you'll have to wait until that episode has been aired!)

To begin with, like most viewers, I was totally captivated by the woodland location, it seemed like a real fairyland, so calm and peaceful and idealistic, the soundtrack seemed to help here too!

Sarah, Charles and Tom were the three trainees who under the tuition of Greenwood Expert Guy Mallinson undertook an apprenticeship in Green Wood. I was a bit surprised that two of the trainees were already 'wood workers' one being a wood work tutor and one being a woodwork student. Not starting from an even level of knowledge made the 'competitive' element of the show a bit unfair.

The most fascinating part of the show was seeing the wood being steamed (who knew this was possible) and witnessing the process of joining the chairs they were asked to make without using any 'fixings' such as nails or glue. It was pretty amazing to see what is achievable with limited resources.

I wasn't particularly keen on seeing a fish being battered to death with the spears they made, seeing the blood and watching them eat it. Secondly I was quite upset that they cut down a tree as part of their final task. We're always being told to save trees, or plant more, it just didn't look sustainable and if it was, they didn't explain how. It would have made more sense to look at recycling existing wood - I know that goes against the tradition and freshness of greenwood, but if greenwood is all about chopping down trees then maybe it's a craft that shouldn't be revived?

Certainly the manor they went about chopping it down was also a bit strange, they tried to be traditional again using a horse and cart to move the log but in reality they sawed the tree down with an electric saw - surely they didn't exist back in the day and if they truly were doing this traditionally, than the three of them should have chopped it down themselves.

Of course I have no intention of dampening anyone's mood, I do think it was a really good show but perhaps too ambitious, trying to cram in too much. Monty's stories about the greenwood industry were interesting but they seemed like enough content for a different show. I loved the piece on the little boats but at the same time it meant less focus on the trainees. As a result their stories were quite limited. I don't think we saw enough of the learning process, a few times we were told they were struggling but then all of a sudden they accomplished tasks. It just wasn't very believable and yet I know how hard they worked, its a shame the general viewing public couldn't make this connection. Still, I am looking forward to this week's thatching show. It's the episode I applied to be in but they turned me down and said I should do the weaving instead! I'm keen to see exactly what I missed out on : )

Here's what other's have said about the show:

In the crafty blog world, Lupin of Bugs and Fishes was pleased to see people making things on TV but didn't quite understand the competitive element.

In The Guardian, Sam Wollaston was fascinated by the whole concept of bodging. (I have to admit, I had not heard of it before apart from in the concept of Bodger and Badger.)

The Observer's Phil Hogan was surprised that the trainees could suddenly jump from making a spear to a chair.

Mastercrafts is currently showing in BBC 2 and BBC 2 HD at 9pm on Fridays.

Sneak preview: New BBC series on Crafts - starring me!

Ok, so I'm not in this trailer but I'm in the series - honest!

Last year I took two months out to undertake an apprenticeship in Weaving as part of this new craft series on BBC coming next month!!

It's presented by Monty Don (who these days is best known for gardening but back in the 80's was a world famous jewellery designer.)

In the series you'll learn about 6 different crafts and watch three people per episode trying to 'master' the craft in question. This sneaky peak is an insight into the episode on 'thatch,' I applied to be on it but at my interview they said I was far better suited to weaving. We shall see......stay tuned for more updates!