Quilts

I finally finished the quilts I was working on... just in time for Christmas!  The pink and purple one uses variations of the boxy stars pattern and the rainbow one is a bargello pattern.

 

Housewarming Cake

Just a quick post as it is after 1am, but I just threw together this cake tonight for a housewarming tomorrow.  It's a 3D house with buttercream icing.  Half of the house is devils food cake and half is golden butter cake.  Here's hoping it survives the drive to Philly without falling over....

Edit:  Well... it didn't exactly survive without falling over.  Somewhere between the Delaware border and North Philly it fell... it still tasted good though from what I've heard so I guess that's all that matters.

Quilt WIP

Here are a few blocks from my current Work In Progress.  I'm deciding whether I want to do all of the blocks in the same style or vary them a little but still keep the same color trends.  We'll see how it goes I guess :D

Bring on the Holiday Season!

     As I stated in a previous post, my current student teaching/grad school schedule has left me little time for anything but homework.  However, the Christmas season draws closer which means it's time for me to make some time!  I have always been a big fan of the Christmas season.  I love the music, the weather, finding those perfect gifts, the fact that people always tend to be a little nicer that time of year and of course, the time off from work! 
     You can always tell when it's the holiday season in my house by the smells... a fire burning in the fireplace and daily smell of fresh baked goods.  While it's a little early for the baked goods, my husband and I did start up our fireplace this past weekend and it was fabulous!  Here are some photos from last year's Christmas season...

The tools of the trade.  My kitchen, and especially my dining room, are in a permanent state of messy-ness at Christmas time but it's totally worth it!

I tried a new recipe for gingerbread men last year and as you can see, they turned out great!  No molasses !

There are 18 varieties of cookies pictured here, but I think the grand total came to 23 varieties last year.  Mmmm...

     Now that I have reminisced about last year, it's time to talk about this year.  My brother had a huge yard sale a few weeks ago and I was kind of bummed to see him selling this really cool toy that Larry and I had given to my nephew Elijah for Christmas the year before.  While I understand that kids grow out of toys and clothes, it's kind of a bummer that they grow out of them so quickly.  This year, I have decided to make quilts as Christmas gifts for a few of the kids.  I know quilts don't light up or have cool TV commercials, but I figure that they will still be great gifts.  If the quilt is made well (which mine always are of course) and isn't too childish, it can be a gift that the kids really can keep forever!  I spent a few hours at JoAnn Fabrics this weekend picking out fabrics (Larry was kind enough to accompany me) and have already started working.  I just finished the quilt top for the first one.  It's for Becca, a rambunctious 3 year old with a love of bright colors.  I decided to go with a rainbow strip bargello quilt for her.  I wasn't able to find any light colored cloud fabric for the border strips so I went with a wispy turquoise fabric instead.  I'm thinking about doing a blue "nighttime" fabric for the backing... kind of a night and day thing. 

The quilt top

A close up of some of the fabrics.  I just love the bright colors and patterns :D

     Well, I think that's all for right now.  I am still deciding on which type of pattern I plan on using for the next quilt on my list.  I am definitely going to go for a block with that one as opposed to the bargello. 

     I hope that this has helped get you into the Christmas spirit and, as always, feel free to leave me comments or suggestions!

 

Elmo Cake Pops!

In order to promote the newest addition to my baking line, cake pops, I decided to throw in some Elmo pops with the Elmo and Cookie Monster cupcakes that I made this weekend.  I think they turned out pretty great!

Bridal Shower

My best friend Stacy is getting married in September, so yesterday we had her bridal shower.  Here is a photo of the cake pops and cupcake pops that I made for the shower along with some of the favors I made.

Cupcake Pops!

Welcome to the wonderful world of cake pops!  I had to rush the decorating of them a bit, but you get the idea!

Elmo and Cookie Monster!

I recently had the pleasure of making some cupcakes for the 2nd birthday of our friend's daughter.  She is a fan of Sesame Street so I made her some Elmo cupcakes:

Of course, nothing goes along with Elmo better than his good friend Cookie Monster.  These cupcakes will certainly turn your mouth blue, but I think it is totally worth it!

Grad school is seriously impeding on my crafting...

So grad school has put a damper in my crafting recently and I am none too happy about it. That being said, I have started making my own clothes recently as they take less time and energy than my quilts do. I have made 5 skirts so far and just made my first dress. I'll post some pictures soon, but I thought I would include some links to some great free patterns I found online. Enjoy!

http://www.sewmamasew.com/store/media/blog/SMSSkirt.pdf

http://craftstew.com/sewing/free-skirt-patterns

http://portabellopixie.typepad.com/PDF/SaturdayMarketSkirtFreePattern.pdf

Some more quilts

Quilt for Baby Isabelle Till

Quilt for my niece, Marleigh

And now some excerpts for the "thread" portion of the blog

Some of my sewing projects:

A reversible tote bag including inside pockets:

A reversible purse including inside pockets:

A quilt that we made for Einstein to help encourage him NOT to lay on the couch:

My first foray into quilting... made for a friend having a baby:

Some more recent cakes

Here are some more recent cakes that I made:


This cake was for Larry's birthday this year. It's the Paladin symbol from World of Warcraft.

These are some cupcakes with fondant crabs on top of them.

Here is another birthday cake that I made. It's a chocolate cake with buttercream icing. The dogs and toys are made from fondant.