Handmade wedding - the cake.

So, this is all about the cake. The actual cake. The edible cake. The square or round cake. The tiers or separate cakes cake. The two or three tier cake. The save the top tier or not cake. The get a chunk on the night and lots to keep afterwards cake. The lets have lots of photographs of it being cut cake. The goodness how big is the cake knife cake. The do not make me pretend to cut this cake anymore cake.The takes two grown men to lift it when I decide to change the tablecloth cake. The please do not drop it cake. The let us hope it is cooked cake. The does it taste nice cake. The oh is it not chocolate small child disappointed cake. The do we have a big enough tin for the leftovers cake.The no knitting involved cake (well, in the decorations, there had to be a little bit!). The how beautiful is that cake cake.

Some decisions about the cake were very easy to make. We knew we wanted to have fruit cake with marzipan and icing. We knew we wanted three tiers. We knew that we were not going to buy it. I was all prepared to get making when I received some wonderful offers of help from my mum, my sister and my very creative friend. As very creative friend is artistic and has done a cake decorating course she was elected chief of cake and was put in charge.

My mum made the bottom layer and my sister made the middle layer, they marzipaned and iced them. The bottom layer took 12 hours to cook! Very creative friend made the top layer, the decorations, assembled the tiers and made an extra cake that I could take along to my knitting group. Big thanks to them all.

Each tier had navy grosgrain ribbon placed around it which was then decorated with knitted flowers. All I had managed to specify was that I wanted flowers in autumnal colours and I was amazed with what I got. I can not tell you how to knit the flowers as the pattern is very creative friends but you could use a pattern from the book mentioned in a previous post or just experiment and make one up. All the flowers had button centres and some had ribbon added too which gave a really lovely effect.

The flower placement on each tier was staggered which showed off all the flowers in their glory and also made it look a little less formal which was in keeping with the mood of our wedding. We decided that we wanted to keep the look quite simple so had matching flowers on the top of the cake.

Here you can see a close up of the flowers and a little bit of detail of the cake stand. It was an ornate silver 1920s cake stand which was totally gorgeous, I loved it. It was hired from the local bakers, what an object to own!

I wanted the cake to be on an embroidered tablecloth for several reasons. I love them and collect them. I like to imagine people sat in their living room embroidering little sections day by day. I like to think who those people may have been, who they were making it for, why they choose to use that particular transfer or that combination of colours. I like to look at the needlework and imagine someone making those stitches. I do not even mind if they have the odd stain as I wonder what it was and hope that they were having a good meal when it happened.

They also remind me of my grandma. She had a few such tablecloths that used to sometimes come out at tea time. There was always a chocolate cake on a cake plate and very often jelly in a big glass bowl. Grandma had a crinoline lady tablecloth which was my favourite. I have it now and pick up others when I see them. Sometimes we used the crinoline lady china set at the same time. My sister has that. The tablecloth used was not Grandmas as I did not want to worry about it on my wedding day. But I know she would have approved and it was a way of having her there in spirit.

If anyone knows why there seemed to be a crinoline lady obsession on tablecloths, napkins and china in the 1930s and 1940s do let me know.

One great thing about having three people each making one layer of the cake is that every layer is a different recipe. They all taste marvellous but not the same with variations in fruit, amount of fruit, type of sugar and type of alcohol used to soak the fruit or to feed the cake. We are enjoying having a cake to cut at and offer to guests. It is like a little piece of wedding joy every time.

Handmade wedding - how to make a bouquet, posies and buttonholes..

At last! I can write about the items I have been making over the past few months. I have been maintaining a state of secrecy as all the items were for my wedding and I wanted to keep some of the details under wraps. I also needed to wait whilst I was hounding guests for their photos. But, now that I have been happily married for one whole month, I can begin to write all the posts that have been stored up in my head for some time!

I was keen that our wedding would have lots of personal touches and that decorations and other items would be handmade wherever possible. That does not mean that it was all made by me, I would not have managed it and stayed sane. I have had help from a number of my family and friends for which I am massively grateful. The bouquet and posies are however, all down to me.

I got mixed reactions when I said I was going to make my bouquet, even more so when I said that I was going to knit it. I wanted to have a bouquet that I could keep and I just fancied the challenge so I decided to go for it. I had a Plan B of grabbing a bunch of whatever flowers there were in the nearest supermarket if I created something too embarrassing to be seen with.

So this is how I made it. I didn't have a definite plan, it was just in my head and I worked it out as I went along. Inevitably that meant that I made the odd mistake and some bits worked better than others so I am going to include what I would do if I were to ever make another (not for me though)!

The major decision is to pick your flowers. I decided to have all the same type of flower and to vary the colour of them. You could knit a mix of flowers, you could knit the same type but all in one colour. I found a knitted flower book was very helpful for generating ideas and for visualising the flowers. I went for dahlias as I enjoy the blowzy shape and they looked fun to make.

Next you need to decide on yarn and needle size. Many patterns do not give a needle size as you just need to pick one that gives you a flower in the size that you want. I started with 3.75mm, liked the size and stuck with them. I thought I was going to use cotton to knit the flowers as it would have produced a lovely sheen. I tried a couple, didn't like the effect as much and also thought they were a bit small. Changing the needle size would have produced a texture I didn't like. I had some cotton, silk, merino blend yarn, tried that and loved it. Also, here I had one of my two Bridezilla moments when I realised I wanted a big bouquet, bigger than my bridesmaids posies, a real stand out one! So they got the cotton ones. Which were still beautiful, just different.

Once I had knitted the flowers and made them up I needed to work on the bouquet and poesy construction. I bought a bundle of 20cm lengths of florist's wire and threaded one length through the stitches at the back of each flower, as you can see above.

I decided to use pencils as my stems but skewers or knitting needles or dowel would work just as well. I used new pencils and placed them in a convenient indent in the middle of the back of each flower. It occurred to me later that sharpening them and sticking the point into the flower would give extra hold.

I then wrapped the wire around the pencil, keeping it as tight as possible and catching it through a few stitches on the way. Using a pair of pliers to tighten the wire up would be a good plan here. I couldn't face rummaging through the loft to find mine (note to self - put them in a more suitable location). The objective is to attach the flower head to the pencil stem in a reasonably secure manner. Obviously the bouquet and posies are generally treated quite gently. If you are going to throw yours a spot of glue may be called for.

I tied some yarn around the wire to prevent it from slipping down the pencil, it acted like a kind of shelf. I did think about knitting icords to cover the pencils and if I had left myself enough free time I would have done. I think that would give the prettiest look. I used green grosgrain ribbon to wrap around the pencils to turn them into stems and it worked really well.

I grouped my flowers into threes and tied them together making sure that the flower heads were well arranged and not squashed. Odd numbered groupings tend to look most pleasing but you could play around to obtain the effect that you want. The posies were made of 3 flowers, my bouquet was made of nine. For my bouquet I then tied each set of 3 flowers together. Here it was really important to check that all the flowers could be seen well to get the full effect. I found varying the heights of the pencils and the angles at which they were tied achieved this. I then wrapped them in ribbon as mentioned previously.

At this point the flowers looked great, it looked like a poesy or bouquet, but I felt something was missing. I was thinking that shop bought flowers often have something wrapped around the stems and I suddenly though doilies! So I raided my vintage doily collection (that is your something old right there) until I found the perfect ones. Each poesy got one doily, the bouquet had one per group of 3 flowers. I tied them around the pencil stems with yarn and also stitched them to some strategic flower petals so that they didn't flop down.

I wrapped the stems in thick green ribbon which I stitched and pinned into place. I then got a couple of metres of thin velvet ribbon, because I love it, and wrapped that around the centre of the stems. I used colours to match our dresses and also used a pale blue ribbon on my bouquet (there is your something blue)! I stitched a small pearl button to the centre of the bows that I tied in the velvet ribbon. We were all wearing pearl jewellery and I had vintage pearl buttons on my hat so I wanted it all to tie in.

My bridesmaids and I with the finished articles!

I made the buttonholes from the carnation pattern in the same book. I choose yarn to match the ties worn by the groom and best man. I made each one a single carnation, following the pattern exactly, including the short icord stem, I just changed the length of it. When I had made up the flowers I attached a brooch back to each so that they could be worn on suit jacket lapels. Despite some last minute knitting in the car on the day before our wedding I was really pleased with how they turned out.

My next few posts will cover other handmade items from our wedding. In a couple of these pictures you can see my hat and bag which were made for me by a very clever and generous friend. I can't tell you how they were made as I did't make them but I want to point them out as they are absolutely beautiful and completed my outfit.