Creativity for the Uncreative by Chloe

Until recently I shied away from being described as creative. As an author, I suppose it was a reasonable description, but even when my first novel was published I didn't feel as if the title suited me. Creative people wear smocks and multiple piercings, they practise mindfulness at sunrise and stay up half the night discussing philosophy. They don’t wear jeans and spill fruit juice down their t-shirts just before they have to go out and watch trashy documentaries when they’re tired.

But I think it’s time I re-claimed the word ‘creative’. My university degree – my first love – is science, and I always rejected being ‘creative’ as it seemed to be the opposite to ‘scientific’. What rubbish! Scientists are some of the most creative people out there. If you look at the way inventions were refined, mathematical equations defined and new theories opined, it is a world of rich, extraordinary thinking. Creativity is “the use of imagination or original ideas to create something; inventiveness”. There are no limits as to where you use that creativity.

I’m sure many of you are as creative as Joe and Jenny, Rulers of this Blog, are. I cannot claim to match them in terms of the width and depth of their creativity but I do dabble with knitting and sewing, I love baking and I make up lies for my day job. All these things are, of course, creative, and most of them I’m not much good at. But I've come to believe, that true creativity isn't in mastering these skills. True creativity is in learning new things. You might not be the first person to knit a sock or make a special cushion so you can sit on the stairs more comfortably (OK, you may be the first person to do that), but if it’s new for you then you are creating something in your life – inventing a new part of yourself.

In the last five years I've tried to teach myself all sorts of new things. I taught myself to knit, to touch-type, to write in Teeline shorthand and to use a sewing machine. I've made a Christmas tree out of baubles. Not all of those things would be considered creative by most people, but they have sparked my imagination and enriched my life. Creativity doesn't just mean crafts.

As I write this I have just taken possession of a DVD containing 48 lectures outlining the classics of British literature. This was something of an impulse purchase when I stumbled across the company The Great Courses. Have you heard of them? They provide over 500 courses – from meditation or calculus, to world history or the appreciation of art – given by leading university professors and experts. Is it creative? I don’t know, but it’s new, it’s making me use my brain (as a full-time mum of a young baby this is something I value!) and it’s widening my experience of the world.

I'm no longer scared of being called creative. Somewhere, deep down or on the surface, we are all creative. It’s part of being gloriously human. We just have to decide what we want to spend our time creating. If we never stop learning new stuff, we’ll never stop inventing new parts of ourselves. And isn't that an adventure?

What new things have you been learning recently?

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Chloe is a long-standing friend and has appeared on this blog a few times in the last year . Chloe is a teller of tales - some short, some long, some prize-winning. She started writing by accident a few years ago and forgot to stop until it was too late. Her first novel, The Art of Letting Go, was published in July 2014. Chloe lives in Devon with her husband and son, where she makes puddings, avoids spiders and wages war on misused apostrophes. You can catch up with her on her website, or chat to her on Twitter.

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Pots from Old Jeans by Wendy

I'm very proud to say that I am Joe's mum and fortunate that Jenny is now part of our family. Joe's old bedroom is now a guest room ( with a fold down bed made by his dad ) and my workroom were I can surround myself with fabrics and be inspired.

This week I have made a couple of fabric storage pots from the legs of old jeans. One pair were black the other standard blue ( slightly harder to sew as they are stretch ones). I tried to find some with the least flare from my box of discarded jeans. 

I used an 8 inch section from a leg plus a circle. If you can't cope with working out how big to cut the circle, by measuring across the leg x 2 to get circumference and doing the maths, try putting "circle calculator" into Google and it will work out the maths for you. Do remember to measure the denim tube along the seam allowance not the bottom raw edge and add the same seam allowance to the circle either on the pattern or as you cut it.

      

For the lining I used some cotton fat quarters from my fabric stash and some extra firm heat and bond interfacing. I would normally iron the interfacing to the outside fabric but I did not want to unpick the side seams so fused it to the main body of the lining on the sides but to the denim on the base.

Folding the lining fabric and placing the leg section on top, so one side of leg is along the fold, I cut out the lining the same size at the top and bottom but leaving a seam allowance down the side which I marked with a prym trickmarker. This seam was then pinned and stitched.

This tube was attached to the denim tube ( wrong sides together ) at one end. Pulled right side out and pressed, then top stitched on the denim through the layers of the seam.

The base circle of denim and a matching circle cut out of the lining were pinned then machine tacked together. I marked both the circle and the denim end of the tube in 4 equal places along the sewing lines ( not the edges) to help join them together. I pinned then machined along the stitching line twice to make it strong. You may need to tack it first to ensure you don't get pleats or puckers.

      

     

Clip the curves then fold the lining down the sides and ladder stitch into place by hand.

Turn right side out and fold down the cuff.

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Life's a Game 10: Carcassonne by Rachel

This year we're sharing with you our game of the month. These are all favourites from our collection, or ones we play with our friends.

Octobers game is Carcassonne and is brought to you by Rachel, a good friend and a fellow lover of board games:

Chris and I have acquired a good cupboardful of games over the years but Carcassonne remains a firm favourite. I think one of the main reasons is that - whilst we thrive on having friends over for games evenings - on the odd occasion it’s just the two of us. Most of our preferred games fall at this hurdle, fortunately though Carcassonne is just as enjoyable and challenging with 2 players as it is with 6.

Chris likens Carcassonne to a big jigsaw puzzle, as you start the board with just one tile and build the rest as you go. On your turn you pick up a tile from a facedown pile and place it so it fits (city to city, road to road or field to field) orthogonally to another tile. You can then place your Meeple on the tile you have just placed (and not anywhere else!).  The options:


1. Place your Meeple into a city

2. Place your Meeple on a road

 

3. Place your Meeple on the field to make him a farmer.

   

4. Do nothing. A perfectly legitimate move as you have a limited number of Meeple. Once you’ve put them on the board they’re stuck there until you ‘complete’ the city or road. In the case of farmers they are stuck for the rest of the game!

The next person then picks up a tile and you keep going until you have run out of tiles. Now Meeple are quite protective of their property – so once you have claimed a city, road or field it is YOURS. Nobody else can just add a tile on and decide they want to join you. (unless they’re sneaky but we’ll get to that later).

So, how do you actually win this game? As usual, it’s about points.  There are 3 main ways to score points:

1. Complete a city that your Meeple is in. You get 2 points for each tile, so the blue Meeple has just finished a city and would normally get 2 points for 3 tiles = 6 points. Luckily for him he’s got a blue and white shield, so that gives him a bonus 2 extra points – making a total of 8. (The yellow city is still open as it doesn’t have a wall going all the way around it)

 

2. Complete a road that your Meeple is on. This is when both ends are closed. You get a mere 1 point for each tile, so it’s not as prestigious as a city.

3. Farming a field, which doesn’t happen right until the end of the game.  By the end the board will probably be split into 2 or more farms. The edge of a farm is marked by road, city walls and the edge of the board – see the board below. They can be notoriously difficult to spot, (especially on larger boards) and it takes a few times of playing to become adept at seeing them. Each complete city in your farm is worth 3 points.  If a city isn’t complete it’s worthless for a farmer. So here there are 3 points for 4 cities = 12 points. Farms can really swing the end of the game – adding some extra tension.

(If you have expansions, your board will be much, much bigger than this as you get more tiles with each expansion).

Now you’ve got the fairly mundane mechanics of the game, here comes the interesting part. Depending on your level of competitive-ness and mood you may wish to be sneaky and ‘join other Meeple’ in their ventures (ie steal from them!) You can join them indirectly by placing your Meeple into a new city, etc. and then placing a tile to join them together.

For example:

The yellow Meeple has just started their own city. It is not joined to the blue Meeple city at the moment (you can’t join diagonally) so they can get away with it.

However, a move later the yellow Meeple has put down a tile joining the two cities together.

This can happen for cities, roads and (is most common) for farms. When you end up sharing it’s fine – in fact a joint venture can even help you both get more points. However, it’s a tightrope to walk – can you trust your partner? For instance if yellow sneaks in another Meeple so there are 2 yellow Meeple and only 1 blue Meeple, blue gets nothing! How ruthless are you?

I have to confess I haven’t fully explained all the ins and outs or even more obscure ways of scoring points. But you’ve heard enough from me, the best thing is just to give it a go now. Honestly, it’s much easier to play than to explain! Besides where would be the incentive to play if I explained about the expansion when the Dragon gobbles Meeple and there are magic portals?

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What to Knit in Hospital by Julie

Since most knitting topics have been adequately covered by Jenny, I felt the need to cover a branch of knitting that receives little attention, what to knit when you are in hospital or visiting someone every day in hospital. Our daughter, and Jenny and Joe’s sister, has something called Rett Syndrome. Katrina is very disabled and has often been in hospital. Most people when their seriously ill relative is rushed into hospital by ambulance with blue flashing lights would panic. We, however, pack a bottle of water, snacks, books, money, mini-DVD player, Disney films and Old Bear books, and I start to consider what I am going to knit whilst Katrina is in hospital.

We have spent days/weeks/months in hospital and the only way to endure hours of Disney films or Katrina sleeping is to knit. (I am not sure how her Dad copes - he just reads.) I managed a whole jumper in the great stay of 2008. I would go on to consider that the only way to survive the stress of life is to knit. I am not sure how non-knitters stay the course. To be serious, I cope better with stress if I can knit. There have been times when Katrina has been so ill that even knitting has failed me, but generally being busy means I get less tired, remain calm and vaguely sane.

The important question is what to knit. The ideal would be something small and plain so you do not need to concentrate too much. Huge balls of wool are a disadvantage, they get in the way. Masses of stitches in a row aren’t helpful either if doctors keep coming in and interrupting. Last year I made a few blanket squares, and did some different stitches.

Yes, I know they are still not sewn together!

This time insanity took over. On a recent trip to Hawes in Yorkshire I found the most wonderful shop called the Knitting Basket. The selection of wool was interesting and different, and very good quality. Of course, I couldn’t resist and had to buy more wool. I have two crates at home to use up but it is a compulsion to buy more. Jeremy had foolishly taken some shopping back to the car and left me on my own, so I treated myself to some lace weight wool.

When Katrina went in this time we realised we weren’t going to spend days squished into a corner in intensive care, so I decided to start knitting a lace shawl. This was a BAD idea. The whole point of hospital knitting is that is has to be easy (see previous paragraph), and this was not super difficult but just complicated enough. Each row had 101 stitches and if you missed one yarn over needle that was it. You had to unpick I couldn’t always work out where I had gone wrong otherwise I might have tried just picking up a loop between rows. Unpicking lace knitting is slow and demanding and usually means you drop a stitch. I had only just started the project when Katrina went into hospital, and I started it again and again and again. I couldn’t do the knitting sitting next to Katrina, she was too interested in what I was up to and would lean over and poke the knitting, usually that meant that I missed a stitch.

Here is a picture of how far I have got. Hopefully now I am home I can get on with it and next time it is back to blanket squares!

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Julie is Jenny's mum and needs little more introduction than that; their relatedness is clearly shown in their combined enjoyment of knitting, sewing, baking and gardening. She taught Jenny to knit as a girl, and they now regularly swap tips, patterns and ideas!

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Chocolate and Salted Caramel Swiss Roll by Mel

Today's post comes to you from a bit of a time warp. Due to crossing the international date line on an overnight flight we're skipping the 17th September this year and going straight from Tuesday in Canada to Thursday in New Zealand. Strange!

Since we've temporarily ceased to exist we've got the first of our guest posts for you today. Over to Mel:

You will by now be very familiar with the Great Swift Bake-Off, but as Joe stated in his first Bake-Off post, he got the idea from a friend who’d done something similar. Well, that’s me. In a much less organised manner, I and my friend and colleague Nikki vie for ‘Queen of the Cake-Off’ on an approximately monthly basis. So far we've covered ginger cake, lemon drizzle, Halloween, brownies, cupcakes and an Easter spectacular, plus a few more - we've reached about 10 now. This week it was Swiss rolls; inspired by the Great British Bake-Off the other week I went for a Chocolate and Salted Caramel swiss roll, I can’t take credit for the recipe I’m afraid, but here it is:

Chocolate and Salted Caramel Swiss roll

For the cake mix:

• 4 eggs, separated into whites and yolks
• 70g icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste (or extract)
• 80g plain flour
• 20g cocoa
• 1 tsp baking powder

For the salted caramel:

• 80g light brown muscovado sugar
• 25g butter
• 1 tsp water
• 100ml double cream
• 1 pinch flaked sea salt

For the butter cream:

• 200g unsalted butter
• 350g icing sugar
• 100ml of the cooled salted caramel sauce

Apologies for my photography skills, I’m not as kitted up camera wise as Jenny and Joe!

Start by whisking the egg whites to stiff peaks – using a gadget always works best for me, hand whisking is too much hard work. I've been given a tip that it’s best to do this in a glass bowl rather than plastic, as plastic can retain some greasiness, even after washing, which will prevent the whites from whisking well, so I always whisk eggs in glass.

Once you've got stiff peaks whisk in the sugar then gradually combine in the egg whites whilst still whisking, add the vanilla essence at this stage too.

Sieve the dry ingredients over the egg mixture and gently fold it in, trying to keep as much air as possible in the eggs. The air makes the sponge stay nice and light, and less like a pancake . . . more on that later.

  

Gently pour the mixture into a lined, greased tin ~21x31cm, and even the mixture out by tipping the tray and gently smoothing with a spatula, do not bang it, all the air will disappear! Approximately 8 minutes in the oven (175C for fan oven (190C non fan/gas mark 5 1/2)) and you will end up with a nice springy sponge, slightly pulling away from the edges of the tin.

Whilst the sponge is still hot, spread a piece of greaseproof on a clean work surface, tip the sponge straight out on top and peel off any lining paper you used. For a nice tight roll, use a knife (doesn’t need to be a sharp one) to score a line along the short edge about a centimetre in and about half the depth of the sponge.

  

Use the greaseproof to grip the hot sponge as you tightly roll it up, the sugar now stuck to the outside will help it come apart again later, but if you try to roll it cold you tend to end up with massive cracks. Leave it to cool.

Meanwhile:

  

Melt together the sugar, butter and water to make the caramel. Swirl it rather than stirring, otherwise you’ll probably end up with crystals instead of caramel. After bubbling for a few minutes, take it off the heat and whisk in the cream and the pinch of salt (I used ground, not flaked, don’t think it ought to make a difference really). Again, leave to cool.

Meanwhile some more:

Beat the (room temperature) butter to soften it, and then gradually beat in the icing sugar and ¾ of the caramel sauce. It gets quite stiff once you’ve added all the icing sugar, but eases off a bit once you add the caramel.

  

I piped my buttercream, filling the bag a little at a time so that it doesn’t get too warm from my hands, and using a star piping nozzle makes for nice patterns later. And here the humble water glass, essential to filling a piping bag, and not making a mess once it’s filled . . . 

  

Unroll the sponge roll and pipe/spread some of the buttercream across the surface, then roll tightly. You don’t need to pipe perfectly to the edges, the buttercream spreads to the ends as you roll it tight.

  

First to admit I’m rubbish at piping, but here’s my attempt at a nice smooth covering, with nice arty ridges created by the star shaped nozzle. Drizzle with the remaining caramel sauce and voila, an iced chocolate and salted caramel swiss roll, fit for a Queen of cakes.

Yes, I won. Unfortunately Nikki’s recipe stated whisking the eggs whole, rather than whites separately, which meant almost no volume to her sponge . . . so it ended up a bit like a rolled up pancake. But she’s not the only one to make that mistake, I attempted a Slimming world friendly Chocolate and strawberry roulade earlier in the weekend, and also ended up with a slightly pancakey sponge. Tasty though, and much less guilt eating it!

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Mel is an Electronic Engineer living in Stevenage. She designs and tests motor control circuits at work, but like to fill her spare time with activities like baking, knitting, cross stitch or just hanging out with her pair of house bunnies. She met Jen on the first day of university, when they found themselves sitting together in an introduction session, having unconsciously grouped together as some of the few female engineers in the room!

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