Work in Progress
I know I've been very quiet around here lately, but things in RL have been insanely busy even above and beyond what's normal in my slightly crazed life.
There's work, of course, for which I am on the critical development path until December sometime, and also the Guide unit I am supposed to be leading (consumer of all my Friday nights, some Tuesdays and many weekends). The current real block to the existence of spare time is, however, my cousin's wedding this coming Saturday.
Some background here: my cousin and his fiancee have been together for ages, so I know her fairly well. She doesn't have family locally, and has been arranging the wedding with the help of my Aunt, who has no daughters. Both my brother and my sister have been married in the past couple of years, so the 'family wedding' thing has become fairly familiar...and my immediate family does rather tend towards the DIY style of getting things done.
I volunteered to do the wedding cake, because it's Family, after all, and that was the whole point of learning to make insanely fancy cakes in the first place. That was OK - it would be my seventh fancy cake in two years, and third wedding cake, and I knew I could spare a couple of weekends to work on it. Unfortunately, though, I come by my inability to turn down requests for help honestly: my Mum, in a seperate bout of family feeling, volunteered us to make the bridesmaid's dresses. Again it's not too complicated a task, but one of the bridesmaids is in Wollongong (as is my cousin) and one in Hobart, and so finding time to do fittings became a little complicated.
We ended up making up calico toiles from measurements, posting them to the girls to get a rudimentry fitting done, then made up the dresses from the toiles. Three weeks ago, we made the trek to Wollongong to get the gowns approved by the bride, and the first one completely fitted. That went fine - it's a simple pattern, and we only needed to take the dress in a bit then do the hem: a couple of hours work at most. Then the wedding dress got tried on, just to check the hem length would be OK with the new shoes. It had been bought in a sale quite early in the engagement, and was at least a size too small in the body, and about 15cm too long in the skirt: instant drama!
Mum and I ended up taking the bodice of the gown apart to let out all the seams we could get at, replaced the normal zip with an invisible one to squeeze a bit more seam allowance and changed the angle the shoulder straps were sitting at to get the newly shaped bodice to sit right again. Once that was done, we had to measure, cut and sew up three layers of hem. It ended up looking OK: the only marks from the let-out will be hidden by the veil, but it was after midnight before were were done, and after 2am before we got home. With no help from the deer that nearly walked out in front of the car on the way up Mt Ousley, or the second one that did run in front of the car at around Waterfall.
We made a second trip to Wollongong last weekend to fit the second bridesmaid's gown, since the recipient had now arrived from Hobart. This had to be fitted around the Hen party (Spring Carnival at the Kembla Grange racecourse), so we did the fitting first thing in the morning, went to the races the rest of the day, then cut the evening portion of the party to actually make the required modifications, plus press both bridesmaids frocks and the wedding dress. Phew.
So the bridesmaids' gowns ended up taking four full days of work (and spare days are rare and precious things in my life) counting making the toiles, making up the gowns and two days of fittings + sewing. In between all those, I've done about 50 hours work on the decorations for the cake, which seems a bit ridiculous for something that will get eaten, but there you go. It's at least consistent with the calligraphy and embroidery and other fiddly/fussy hobbies I tend to work on!
This is the full set of completed flowers: White oriental lilies, violet lisianthus and magenta dendrobium orchids to match what will be in the Bride's bouquet.
A closeup of the lilies:
A closeup of the orchids:
I'll admit to being rather pleased with how these all came out. I've never done a flower as large as the lilies before, and ended up asking the guy in the cake decorating supplies shop for hints in how to manage them so they didn't all shatter as soon as I tried to arrange them (the sugarpaste is ridiculously brittle and susceptible to changes in humidity). I ended up wiring each petal individually, which has worked out rather well. Each open lily is about 10cm long (not including the stem) and the same in diameter.
The lisianthus are done in the same way as roses, which are an old and familiar thing, so they were OK.
The orchids are moderately familiar, since I've done orchids for both my siblings' wedding cakes as well, but the intense colour on these complicated things a bit: it's not possible to achieve that shade in icing and still have it workable (the colourings change the consistency too much), so the petals are painted. Each of the four layers of petals (column, throat, wing petals, sepals) thus had to be modelled, dried for at least 24 hours, painted, then dried for at least another 24 hours before moving on to the next stage. All the cakes with large numbers of flowers that I've done before now have been very subtle colours, meaning the icing can be dyed, which is a much less time-consuming way to do it.
For example, some left-over flowers from my brother's wedding cake:
Now that the decorations are complete, I get to assemble it all. The actual cakes have been made by my mother (fruit cake for the top tier, made about 6 weeks back so it had time to mature) and my sister (white chocolate and caramel mud cakes for the lower tiers, made just the other day so they last until the wedding).
I took yesterday off work so I could cover the cakes in daylight, with the help of my dad, my sister (who is a stay-at-home mum) and my 11-month-old nephew who specializes in pulling all the tupperware out of the drawers and scattering it underfoot :) It took eight batches of fondant and one of marzipan to cover all three tiers of the main cake, plus a spare fruit cake that won't be decorated, just cut and served at the reception. 15 boxes of icing sugar!
This is the covered tiers ready to be assembled:
The wooden skewers in the large bottom tier will let it support the weight of the middle tier, which will be directly stacked on top of it (it comes off the square board, but will have a hidden round board underneath it that actually sits on top of the skewers). The top tier will be raised on pillars.
Tonight I will assemble the thing, now the fondant has had a day to set a bit. Tomorrow night I will add all the flowers. Saturday morning I get to load it in the car and drive two hours to deliver it to the reception venue, after which it's no longer my problem :)
More photos to come...
There's work, of course, for which I am on the critical development path until December sometime, and also the Guide unit I am supposed to be leading (consumer of all my Friday nights, some Tuesdays and many weekends). The current real block to the existence of spare time is, however, my cousin's wedding this coming Saturday.
Some background here: my cousin and his fiancee have been together for ages, so I know her fairly well. She doesn't have family locally, and has been arranging the wedding with the help of my Aunt, who has no daughters. Both my brother and my sister have been married in the past couple of years, so the 'family wedding' thing has become fairly familiar...and my immediate family does rather tend towards the DIY style of getting things done.
I volunteered to do the wedding cake, because it's Family, after all, and that was the whole point of learning to make insanely fancy cakes in the first place. That was OK - it would be my seventh fancy cake in two years, and third wedding cake, and I knew I could spare a couple of weekends to work on it. Unfortunately, though, I come by my inability to turn down requests for help honestly: my Mum, in a seperate bout of family feeling, volunteered us to make the bridesmaid's dresses. Again it's not too complicated a task, but one of the bridesmaids is in Wollongong (as is my cousin) and one in Hobart, and so finding time to do fittings became a little complicated.
We ended up making up calico toiles from measurements, posting them to the girls to get a rudimentry fitting done, then made up the dresses from the toiles. Three weeks ago, we made the trek to Wollongong to get the gowns approved by the bride, and the first one completely fitted. That went fine - it's a simple pattern, and we only needed to take the dress in a bit then do the hem: a couple of hours work at most. Then the wedding dress got tried on, just to check the hem length would be OK with the new shoes. It had been bought in a sale quite early in the engagement, and was at least a size too small in the body, and about 15cm too long in the skirt: instant drama!
Mum and I ended up taking the bodice of the gown apart to let out all the seams we could get at, replaced the normal zip with an invisible one to squeeze a bit more seam allowance and changed the angle the shoulder straps were sitting at to get the newly shaped bodice to sit right again. Once that was done, we had to measure, cut and sew up three layers of hem. It ended up looking OK: the only marks from the let-out will be hidden by the veil, but it was after midnight before were were done, and after 2am before we got home. With no help from the deer that nearly walked out in front of the car on the way up Mt Ousley, or the second one that did run in front of the car at around Waterfall.
We made a second trip to Wollongong last weekend to fit the second bridesmaid's gown, since the recipient had now arrived from Hobart. This had to be fitted around the Hen party (Spring Carnival at the Kembla Grange racecourse), so we did the fitting first thing in the morning, went to the races the rest of the day, then cut the evening portion of the party to actually make the required modifications, plus press both bridesmaids frocks and the wedding dress. Phew.
So the bridesmaids' gowns ended up taking four full days of work (and spare days are rare and precious things in my life) counting making the toiles, making up the gowns and two days of fittings + sewing. In between all those, I've done about 50 hours work on the decorations for the cake, which seems a bit ridiculous for something that will get eaten, but there you go. It's at least consistent with the calligraphy and embroidery and other fiddly/fussy hobbies I tend to work on!
This is the full set of completed flowers: White oriental lilies, violet lisianthus and magenta dendrobium orchids to match what will be in the Bride's bouquet.
A closeup of the lilies:
A closeup of the orchids:
I'll admit to being rather pleased with how these all came out. I've never done a flower as large as the lilies before, and ended up asking the guy in the cake decorating supplies shop for hints in how to manage them so they didn't all shatter as soon as I tried to arrange them (the sugarpaste is ridiculously brittle and susceptible to changes in humidity). I ended up wiring each petal individually, which has worked out rather well. Each open lily is about 10cm long (not including the stem) and the same in diameter.
The lisianthus are done in the same way as roses, which are an old and familiar thing, so they were OK.
The orchids are moderately familiar, since I've done orchids for both my siblings' wedding cakes as well, but the intense colour on these complicated things a bit: it's not possible to achieve that shade in icing and still have it workable (the colourings change the consistency too much), so the petals are painted. Each of the four layers of petals (column, throat, wing petals, sepals) thus had to be modelled, dried for at least 24 hours, painted, then dried for at least another 24 hours before moving on to the next stage. All the cakes with large numbers of flowers that I've done before now have been very subtle colours, meaning the icing can be dyed, which is a much less time-consuming way to do it.
For example, some left-over flowers from my brother's wedding cake:
Now that the decorations are complete, I get to assemble it all. The actual cakes have been made by my mother (fruit cake for the top tier, made about 6 weeks back so it had time to mature) and my sister (white chocolate and caramel mud cakes for the lower tiers, made just the other day so they last until the wedding).
I took yesterday off work so I could cover the cakes in daylight, with the help of my dad, my sister (who is a stay-at-home mum) and my 11-month-old nephew who specializes in pulling all the tupperware out of the drawers and scattering it underfoot :) It took eight batches of fondant and one of marzipan to cover all three tiers of the main cake, plus a spare fruit cake that won't be decorated, just cut and served at the reception. 15 boxes of icing sugar!
This is the covered tiers ready to be assembled:
The wooden skewers in the large bottom tier will let it support the weight of the middle tier, which will be directly stacked on top of it (it comes off the square board, but will have a hidden round board underneath it that actually sits on top of the skewers). The top tier will be raised on pillars.
Tonight I will assemble the thing, now the fondant has had a day to set a bit. Tomorrow night I will add all the flowers. Saturday morning I get to load it in the car and drive two hours to deliver it to the reception venue, after which it's no longer my problem :)
More photos to come...