Teaching at Chalkle.... Flops and successes

This has been a very interesting month. I have met some really lovely ladies, teaching how to use Pinterest at our local library. I also me the 'Friends of the Library" and gave a talk on  Pinterest and the classes I hope to teach in the future. However, attendances haven't been what any of us have expected, and I'm scraping through financially. Teething pains. A new system in a new town. It will get better. I hope so, anyway...

My first class

But the ladies I have met! Awesome! Fantastic people with so many skills! That has been the best of all.  This is a small town, and you kind of think you know everyone, and then you meet people with such interesting hobbies. I have lugged my suitcase full of things I have attempted from Pinterest to the classes each Friday, and now things that have been made by others are coming through.

 Sadly, the last week, all I could show them was a bunch of flops, things I had tried and they just didn't work out very well.I have a memory of clotted cream when I was a child on holiday in England.  Thick, creamy, crusty toppings for scones. 

This is what it should look like- mine was so shameful I didn't want to photograph it!

I HAD to try it, so went out to a local dairy and got some (!!! Seven litres!) of unpasteurised organic milk. It was delicious, like drinking a milkshake, and I consumed too much and the next day had a rather shaky constitution. I scooped off all the cream and put it in my slowcooker for 12 hours. Pinterest posts had said 9-12 hours in the oven on 185 degrees F, but I couldn't bring myself to have the oven on that long, so opted for the slow cooker. Maybe that was what I did wrong.  I watched the temperature, but the result was a rather nasty creamy oily mess, reminiscent of rice pudding without the rice. FLOP!
As I had so much milk, I decided to make cheese too, with a kit that was given to me by my husband 2 Christmases ago and so I made Feta. But I got the temperature too high, and made a rather squeaky, rubbery block of cheese which my daughter says is Haloumi .A SORT OF A FLOP!
 And after that, the cheese kit instructions suggested I made ricotta with the whey and some extra milk. So I made that too! SUCCESS!

That night all I wanted to eat was boiled, plain vegetables.

The milk has been lovely, and today I need to go and get some more. Its fun driving down the country roads to get the milk, but I do wonder if I will keep it up.

Successes on Pinterest have been a lovely wool blanket which I knitted from some waste wool at out local knitting mill. I just love it. I was lucky to find some carded wool on  rolls in my bag of waste, which I unravelled and re-rolled and produced my big cream 'Blankie' which goes over our knees at night while we are watching television

My bag of waste wool

 I had to unravel the wool and rewind it

My knitting.. see how fat the needles are!

Here is a blouse which I attempted Ombre Dyeing. SUCCESS!

Other items I took in was the 'Toilet roll wall decoration', a picture I had managed to print onto curtain lining and paste onto a picture board, you know, the things which seem to come up again and again on Pinterest.

But I am kind of over all of it now.... time for a new Challenge. Pattern making classes start tomorrow!