An old lady in a chair (part two)

This week in cake decorating class I carried on with the lady in a chair project. We moved on to making the figure this week, which ended up being quite time consuming and difficult. (It also didn't help having a practice fire drill which cut our time in class short)
We started with the slippers, these are just balls of sugar paste, made into cones, flattened at the back and decorated with a pom pom and fur! We made the legs by rolling the paste into a sausage sort of shape that has a slightly thicker end at one end. Then knees and ankles are made by pinching the paste to give it shape. Cut a wedge from the bottom back of the leg for the foot. Then you can stick your legs to the slippers and chair with a little water:

Next we made the skirt part of the dress. This is essentially just a rectangle of sugar paste that is gathered at the top and either marked with a knife or tool to give a pattern or if you have one you can use a patterned rolling pin so you have a nice flowery dress.

Next you need to make the body. I found this quite difficult, firstly she was fat with no waist, then she had droopy boobs, then squashed boobs! After a much needed re-modelling I got the body right. I then made the top half of the dress and wrapped it around the body with the join at the back which you won't see when she is sat in the chair. I also added a skewer that goes through the body and into the cake.

The white square on the base of the board is the beginning of a newspaper.
I also added the body part of the cardigan, again this proved to be quite difficult as you need to measure it against the body and add the trim detail.

So for now Hilda will remain headless and arm-less until the next class...