Weekends...

Subject: Weekends... Sat Feb 23, 2008 7:57 am

Last weekend I laundered my way past becoming unexpectedly single after a few months, and this weekend I'm happily tackling some of the other things that have got pushed to one side whilst I was off gallivanting with a faithless time-waster! ;-)

So... it's a day today for standing on empty soft-drinks cans and piling up the recycling just inside the front door... for polishing the brass doorknob in my bedroom and beeswaxing the wooden head and foot boards of my big bed... for taking my bedroom sheepskin rug downstairs and brushing it like a pedigree cat at a show... for taking the finished books by my bedside downstairs and actually putting them into the shelves instead of adding them to the teetering tottering piles on the radiator... for handwashing most of my bras and then hanging them on my vintage wooden clothes-horse to dry before folding each in half and tucking the straps in behind and then popping them into a long drawer, helpfully just a bra-cup wide, that's lined with rose-bud paper... for clearing off and beeswaxing the stunning Victorian leather-topped desk that I'm housing briefly for a friend and don't want her to collect... for taking all my houseplants through to the scullery, soaking them thoroughly and giving them a post-Christmas haircut of straggly brown bits... for threading up my great-grandmother's Singer* and quickly hemming all those squares of old sheet and old towel and old good cloth that I've been about-to-do for years as dusters and throwing out the horrible useless synthetic cloths that don't work with old-fashioned beeswax... for sewing Cash's nametapes diagonally across the corners of my face-flannels to hang them up by on the little brass hook by my basin...

And it's howling a gale outside, the light is grey and forbidding and the rain lashes at the windows - a perfect day for staying indoors and Getting Things Done!

At teatime, I'm going to toast some slices of Selkirk Bannock, a traditional fruit-bread full of raisins and spices, drown it in butter melting and sit down to hand-write a few cards to send, after a year when I couldn't hand-write to anyone.

Enjoy your weekends, girls!

laura

*did you know you can look up the machine's code and see its age? Mine was made between June and December 1903 in Glasgow.

Subject: Re: Weekends... Sat Feb 23, 2008 8:00 am

Selkirk bannock recipe
http://www.rampantscotland.com/recipes/blrecipe_selkirk.htm

Ingredients:
1 lb flour
8 oz sultanas (seedless white raisins)
4 oz sugar
2 oz butter and 2 oz lard
2 oz chopped mixed peel
Quarter pint milk
Quarter ounce dried yeast
A tablespoon of milk and sugar for the glaze

Method:
Sieve the flour and sugar into a bowl, add the yeast and mix well.
Melt the butter and lard in a saucepan on a low heat. Remove as soon as
it is melted. Warm the milk in another saucepan and then pour it into
the melted fats.
Create a hole in the middle of the flour, sugar and yeast and
mix well into a smooth dough. Cover the bowl with a warm, damp towel
(or plastic clingfilm) and leave in a warm location for 45 minutes. The
dough will rise, doubling in size.
Knead the dough (with flour on your hands to stop it sticking)
for five minutes. Add the sultanas and mixed peel and knead well again
for another five minutes. Place the dough in a loaf tin and cover with
a plastic pollythene bag (tied at the top) and leave in a warm place
for 20 minutes to allow it to rise again.
Remove the tin from the bag and bake in a preheated oven at
350F/180C/Gas Mark 4 for an hour. Mix the tablespoon of milk and sugar.
Remove the cake tin from the oven and place on a heat-resistant
surface. Brush the top with the milk and sugar, using a pastry brush.
Return the cake tin to the oven (using oven gloves - it's still hot)
and bake for another twenty minutes. Test with a skewer - if it is wet,
continue baking for another ten minutes. Remove from the oven and allow
to cool before removing. Store in an airtight container.

Subject: Re: Weekends... Sat Feb 23, 2008 3:10 pm

Oh, what a beautifully described weekend Laura! You have chores to be envious of, as well as decor! I love beeswaxing things and find it very theraputic - unfortunately I don't own nearly enough gorgeous real wood items that require it, but for those that do I have some lovely Lavender scented beeswax for, that I bought in a place that hand makes it in Cornwall. They do organic soaps and stuff that you can watch being made while you're there. the place is called Trevarno, and they have a website that you can order their products from (I think) - scrummy!

Subject: Re: Weekends... Sat Feb 23, 2008 7:33 pm

Laura, your post is very inspiring....I felt I was right with you organizing and cleaning.

I love the suggestion about using beeswax and even better the lavendar beeswax...I'll be doing a google search to find the website and investigate. We have a couple of pieces of lovely inherited furniture which travelled with us from Canada to the UK when we emigrated. They are in need of some TLC and I hadn't a clue how to go about it. Now I have a plan...thank you.

Jacquie x

Subject: Re: Weekends... Sat Feb 23, 2008 8:29 pm

Jacquie and Sasha - you can always make your own to smell exactly how you like it!

Mine is the same stuff I make for dry skin on my heels, and for my psoriasis ointment, so I KNOW it has no nasties in it ;-)

All you need is some beeswax (old ends of beeswax candles are useful!) and some oil - olive oil or even sunflower oil are fine, any vegetable oil at all; and the essential oils you like to use - I love lavender but others like to put zingy orange or lemon oils in (I always add a few drops of rosemary oil to bought washing-up liquid as I love that smell for cleaning; and I add it to buckets of hot soapy water to wash floors with!)

Put the wax in a glass or plastic bowl and float the bowl in a pan of hot water on the hob so that it isn't sitting on the pan's base. It doesn't have to be free-floating, just not sitting.
As the water heats to a steady simmer, add the oil. Now the tricky bit is that I've never done this by recipe, just by trial and error, so... once the wax is totally totally melted (that's the first vital bit, no tiny bits of wax left) take the bowl out and stir it with a fork. What dries on the fork is the hardness you'll have so if it's too hard, put it back floating in the water and add more oil. Once you have it right for you, take the bowl out and (this is the second important bit) stir it every minute or so while it cools. If you don't stir it, the wax floats to the top and makes a hard crust which makes it really difficult to use as it won't go on or polish off properly.

Once it's cooled (about 15 minutes usually), put it into a lidded jar (I use those lovely little glazed pot ones that Stilton comes in at Christmas, about 3" across with a lid that sits rather than screwing on).

To use it on wooden furniture, use one cloth to wipe it on, going round in spirals so it goes into the crevices and grain of the wood and any scratches. Leave for 5 minutes and then the elbow-grease comes in as you use two clean cloths (old towels are perfect) to polish it off again. The heat of polishing melts it further into the grain and any scratches or chips, so with use it gives you an even shiny surface.

Over time, of if it isn't polished off enough, it can look a bit dull and you just use vinegar-and-water to remove the top layers and on you go again!

It means you save money, have the fun of making your own polishes, and get to choose the scents, maybe different ones for different rooms, or different times of year (cedarwood and frankincense for Christmas?).

And the same recipe does for hard-skin cream for feet and hands, or with more oil makes a soft cream for your body, or with even more oil and a few drops of rosewater and a whisk a light "mousse" for body-lotion, or with even more oil than that you get a rich lotion!

Enjoy! It's really easy - the only thing is making sure all the wax has melted and making sure you stir or whisk it during its cooling period! Oh, that's two things... ;-)

laura

Subject: Re: Weekends... Sat Feb 23, 2008 10:03 pm

Thank you, Laura. That was one spectacular set of instructions. I will get the ingredients together very soon and trust all will work perfectly.

Such an adaptable mixture too....so my dry heels will appreciate the special treatment too!

Jacquie x

Subject: Re: Weekends... Sun Feb 24, 2008 12:06 am

Yep, it's dead handy! ;-)

The best 'Top Tip' is to dress with bare arms and legs as you make it because as you test the consistency, you wipe your hands clean on your arms and legs; and when you transfer it from the bowl to the pot, you wipe your hands and the spatula and spoon on your arms and legs... by the end of it, you are beautifully moisturised and smell gorgeous!

I've never tried it, but I suppose a good buffing with a couple of bits of old towel may result in lovely shiny arms and legs, too...!!!

There's a lot of complicated recipes around for homemade stuff, but anything designed to moisturise and protect, whether wood or skin, is basically melted-wax suspended in oil, so experiment away!

I am partway through working out proper recipes, with quantity indications, and putting them on a blog, so when I've done that, I'll let you know!

This afternoon, I made bath salts... three lovely bottles of them, for soothing aching muscles (pale green), for when I feel sniffly and coldy (pale blue) and for relaxing and winding down for sleep (softest rose-pink).
It's another really complex one - you put sea-salt into a bowl, add essential oils and just 2-3 drops of food-colouring and stir a lot and...ummm... er... well, I suppose if you desperately wanted to then you could run round the house three times widdershins and recite something backwards under a waning moon, but personally I just tip them into bottles and leave the shenanigans to the people who think it's all a bit Mystic, Like ;-)

laura

Subject: Re: Weekends... Thu Feb 28, 2008 11:55 pm

Laura, I've just read my hubby your instructions for polishing our good furniture with beeswax. I also asked him about using the vinegar/water mix to "clean" the furniture first (the woods are maple and walnut). Over the years we've used spray polish on them at various times and they have dulled and don't look clean and shiny any longer.

Hubby is worried if I use the vinegar/water to clean these pieces of furniture I might cause harm. Would you be able to reassure me there is no harm being done if I used that mix? I cannot see it would cause any damage and it should cut through the build-up of the cleaners used previously. Does that make sense to you?

Hubby says....why go to the trouble of making a beeswax when you can go to the shops and purchase some!!!???!!! Just to add....MEN!!! (lol) I like the feeling of accomplishment I'll have when I've "made my own"...that's the answer I gave "him indoors" (i.e. hubby!)

Jacquie x

Subject: Re: Weekends... Fri Feb 29, 2008 11:42 am

merseylass, tell your husband that by making your own you are reducing transport costs, saving money because it's far cheaper, refusing to be cowed into filling your home with artificial perfumes, etc... if you look at the lists of most bought beeswax polishes they are still quite chemical!

As to the dullness... ummm... the spray polishes nearly all contain silicon(e) and once that goes on, yes it's a lovely shine but you can't ever get it off again... it seals the wood which is lovely because you can spill with impunity but it doesn't allow the wood to breathe so the wood can crack and then it dries out and... and... and...

The main thing is to find out what the original finish was. Most old pieces, pre-War, will have been waxed to the original finish, so on those you can use a wax-stripper of your choice, aka 'hard finish remover'. Then you're fine! I like "Liquid Gold" which I find in old-fashioned ironmongers' shops, but it's probably available online..
Hmm, it is in the USA http://www.scottsliquidgold.com/scotts-liquid-gold/
Ah here it is for the UK
http://www.work-play.co.uk/catalogue/index_diy.asp?rName=Furniture%20Care

If it's a modern piece, though, it may have been manufactured with a synthetic silicone-based sealant varnish on it, in which case it is designed to last only a while and there's not much point is waxing it, unless you truly love it and woudl be prepared to strip it back to bare wood and re-finish it with wax! Not many bits of furniture are worth that effort these days...

Having said that, we have a 1980s sideboard that is now starting to crack and craze on its top so I've been beeswaxing it and it's "filling in" the cracks and fissures quite well.

You just have to experiment!

And of course you can point out to your husband that you will also have delicately-scented soft skin as well ;-)

laura