Waiting...

Today has been exciting, but also a bit nerve-wracking.  My niece (the elder one) is in labour with her second baby girl. It all started overnight, but unfortunately things have taken their time and not much is happening yet. 

Summer 2010 - My niece, great niece (#1!) and me

Everyone got excited this morning, so we all feel a bit flat just now. My mum's all worried - she is so far from everything that's going on and doesn't have internet access, text messaging etc, so relies on people to phone her up with news. Unfortunately, she was told early on in the proceedings, so has spent the day fretting and worrying, believing that something is happening and that there must be problems, since no-one has called yet, to tell her the baby is safely here.

Sigh...  There isn't anything wrong; no problems. It's just that it is early yet... my niece has had lots of those "trial contractions" for the last few weeks - once it even looked as if she was in labour, as it went on all night long - then stopped as suddenly as it started.  This time, it's "for real", but just sloooow... The midwife has been in and checked her over. She's happy with her condition, but I think she has said it'll be a while yet.

I think my niece must be so tired. I hope she can get some rest, or even a bit of sleep.  My sister has been in and out (as well as going to work today), so she's keeping an eye out too, but she went home, to leave the family to have a bit of peace and time together.

I hope I'll be back with some more positive, solid news tomorrow.  Meanwhile, I've got the fidgets and have flitted from one job to another all day, without really finishing most things. 

Tomorrow's another day - I'll hope for news in the morning and wish you all Good Night!

Baby Shower, January 2011

Corn Bread Turtle-style!

D'you remember the wonderful parcel I received recently, from a certain DebTurtle? 

It had Sweeties!!

And some Cornmeal, with a recipe to try out my very own American-style Cornbread!

So, today I did just that. 

I found the recipe and cornmeal,

 got my ingredients together,

and also my equipment - don't you love my Cup Measures? So cute! 

I measured out my 1 Cup of Cornmeal

This part is strange for me - here in U.K. we generally write / measure recipes by weight or liquid measures, rather than cups-full (or part-cups).  It seemed strange to put my cornmeal, flour etc into those little cup things. 

All the dry ingredients in the bowl.

I then mixed up the "wet" ingredients in a jug; again it seemed strange to measure the liquids in cups (except the egg, which is 1 Egg in any "language"!).

The other odd thing was using vegetable oil, instead of margarine or butter.  In U.K. we generally use a solid fat in our baking recipes, or sometimes a softer "tub margarine", which is still solid, but has been softened already.  Margarine is a mixture of vegetable fats (sometimes with animal fats too), which stays fairly hard at fridge temperature and needs to be beaten quite hard to soften it (or put in the microwave for a short while - but don't tell Delia!). So I have very few recipes that use liquid fats, so this was an interesting experiment for me!

Once it was all mixed together, the batter/mixture went into the tin,

then into the oven at 200 degrees Celsius (same as Deb's 400F!). 

It came out looking a bit brownish on top, with a slightly crusty surface - like bread or scones. I let it cool for a while,

then I cut it into pieces.

We had Hungarian Goulash (sort-of!) for dinner tonight, with rice and a nice sun-dried tomato bread, from the Italian deli. stall at the Farmers'/Local Produce Market that is held at the local garden centre once a month.  It seemed a good chance to try out our interesting new food, so I put pieces of Corn Bread in the dish, along with the warm bread slices. 

We put butter on some of it and dunked it in the paprika & tomato sauce with our stew. 

It was yummy!

This one's definitely a "keeper"! 

I made this batch without sugar, as I wanted a plain, savoury bread.  Next time I will use a little sugar.  I think I'll also use my slightly smaller square pan, as the bread was a bit thin and dry - I think it will be moister and nicer if it's in a smaller pan and can be in deeper chunks!

So, thanks Deb - it was fun. X

A Present for Natasha

 A lady I know, called Natasha, had a baby girl recently.  I will be seeing her on Tuesday and have made her a gift:

A small photograph album, size 8"x6".

I bought some 100% cotton fabric yesterday and backed it with tissue - remember my post about making bookcloth?

I have used it for the front and back covers.

It has a silk edging on each cover, with a Japanese stab-stitch binding, in ivory linen.

There are 16 pages of Snow White Canford card (300gsm).

I used my embossing machine to make a little decorative plate for the cover, enhancing it with pink Conte pastel and mounting it on a piece of silk, to match the cover-edging.

It's all wrapped up and pretty, ready to give her on Tuesday...

I'm really pleased with this little book - I think she'll love it!

The Ins, Outs and Vagaries of the Postal System

A lovely lady contacted me via my Etsy shop today, asking about this book:

This is my Birds and Flowers guest book, with a moss green and natural linen Coptic stitch binding.

She would like to buy the book, but needs it (in NY, USA) before 30th March.  The enquiry was whether this is possible. 

Sounds simple - that is 15 days' time and normal postage takes 7-10 days for delivery in most of USA. 

Except... just before Christmas, lots of Etsians were reporting that items ordered from non-US shops, for delivery to USA addresses, were not arriving.  Customers were upset and asking for refunds.  In some cases that I heard, items posted at the beginning of December had not even arrived by end of January - and they had been ordered for Christmas presents. 

What was going on?  It turns out that US Customs had been keeping items back in much larger volumes, for extra security checks.  I believe there was a perceived bomb threat, or similar, so they needed to check more items.  This caused a huge backlog, which meant that lots of items just never arrived... Etsy shops were losing money, having to refund customers and/or re-make and re-send missing items.  We were warned about this problem by Etsy and other Etsy sellers, and advised to pass on the information to customers.

And no-one has yet confirmed that the problem is resolved... so, I have had to tell this customer that I can't be sure of the item arriving in time, though so far I haven't had any items go missing.

She asked if I could look into ways to speed up delivery (aside of the possibility of Customs delays).  I looked on the Royal Mail website and found prices for various postage options.

Assuming the parcel would weigh up to 320g:

Option 1 - Standard Airmail postage.  Target 7-10 day delivery to US addresses (most of them).  Not insured, no signature on delivery. Not tracked. Cost, £4.71 ($7.66).

Option 2 - International Signed For delivery.  This is an enhanced Airmail service.  Delivery still 7-10 days. Compensation for lost items (up to £41 - 100 times cost of a 1st class stamp).  Signature on delivery.  Tracked within UK, but not in destination country.  Cost, an additional £4.95 ($8.05) - so £9.66 total ($15.71).

Option 3 - Airsure.  Priority handling, target up to 1 day sooner than Airmail - ie. 6 days to USA.  Insured up to £41, or extra insurance available for an additional fee.  Tracked through UK and US postal services, with signature on delivery. Cost, £11.05 for my parcel ($18).

All good so far... I recommended Option 3.

Option 4 - Parcelforce Global Priority.  This is a guaranteed delivery service.  The package is tracked the entire way and delivered within 3-4 days, to US addresses (some exceptions).  There is insurance for non-delivery or lost items. Cost for a parcel of 300-310g, £48.09 ($78).  

OUCH!  The book is only $45 (around £28 just now). 

I told the customer I will use this service if she wants, but it will cost her an extra $72 on top of the book price (I factor in packaging and UK postage for many of my books, so the postage for elsewhere is the difference between UK and foreign rates).  Somehow, I don't think she'll fancy paying $117 for this book, however lovely she thinks it is!

There is a further option - Parcelforce Global Express - guaranteed delivery within 1 working day.  Cost? £53.19 ($86.51) for a package of 310g.  Super-Ouch!

I didn't even offer her this one... I wonder why?

I suppose it's nice to know the option of 1-day delivery does exist, should it be needed.  But it still doesn't prevent US Customs from swiping the parcel for Security Checks, should they so desire... and it would have to be a pretty special item to be sent by 1-day express mail at such a huge cost!

The good news though, is that I've probably sold this book - just waiting for the customer to make up her mind, click the green button and pay her pennies... Then I'll make it look nice and send it straight away.  Fingers crossed that US Customs don't fancy a peep and decide to keep it for a month or two!

:-)

Round the World - A Photograph Album

Okay, I know it's not normally "polite" to boast of one's achievements, or crow about one's supreme cleverness (au Peter Pan), but today, I think I deserve to do a bit of Own Trumpet Blowing!

So, "Da-da-da daaaa!"

I finished another new book for my Etsy shop and it's gorgeous! 

It's a photo album, 11.75" by 8.5", covered with a gorgeous paper, with a design of vintage trunk labels from a round-the-world cruise.  The back, front edge and inside covers are all a smooth ocean-blue art paper and the binding is a Japanese-style stab-stitch, in warm-red linen thread.


There is a dust-protector on the bound edge, in matching patterned paper.

The pages are stiff card, in the same ocean blue colour (both are Canford paper/card, so they match). There are interleaves of vellum paper, to stop photos sticking together.

It will take two 6x4" photos, either way round.

I LOVE this new book!