Sunday, May 20, 2012

Making Rosewater

Since we currently have a bumper crop of roses at Rose Manor I'm trying my hand at making Rose Water with the apron brown method.....which is referanced in his bakclava show....

Alton Brown

It kinda looks like I'm cooking ice doesn't it? But actually here is the method I'm using:

1. Pick lots of petals off my rose bushes

2. Place elevating object in bottom of pot. I didn't have any bricks so a small wide mouth canning jar is doing the duty.

3. Place petals in pot till they come up to about the level of the canning jar.

4. Place bowl on top of jar. In my case a pyrex bowl.....in altons a stainless steel bowl.....reguardless it needs to be both cook safe and non reactive.

5. Fill the pot with water just high enough to mostly cover the petals.

6. Put lid on pot upside down. Fill lid with ice. This promotes rapid condensation.

7. Turn on heat at medium to medium low. Maintain heat for two hours, replenishing ice as needed.

8. Kill the heat and let the pot cool for several hours.

9. Retrive bowl of rose water! Now I just need to package it!




Friday, May 18, 2012

Stays take 2

Last night = pattern re-drafted using my body block and the info on www.semptress.org

Tonight = cut out the #2 corset....I've got it all prepped to put together tomorrow.

I'll post pictures after some sleep

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Support garment fail

It's been a mixed bag tonight. I got my new set of 's' curve elizabethan stays ready to try on. Sadly though the core design isn't working with my body. I'm serously contimplating making my new set of edwardian stays to wear under my IRCC stuff. Is it period......Hell no.....but I'm not sure I can make a period type pair of stays that give me the correct shape and are comfortable in the time I have alloted........

Argh!!!

  Back to the design board.....