Month: October 2016

October 26, 2016

Let Them Eat Cake!

My daughter’s Freshman season of volleyball came to a close on Monday and she asked me to bake her favorite cake for a celebratory snack after their last game.

She asked for a chocolate cake with raspberries.

This cake is two layers and I tried to do a little shell around the bottom and the top of the cake for added interest and festivity.

My daughter also asked for a raspberry filling.  So I happily provided that!!  I built up a “wall” of frosting around the top edge of the bottom layer, frosted the top of the bottom layer so the jam wouldn’t make the cake soggy and poured jam onto the cake to the level of the frosting border.  Then added the second layer and finished frosting and decorating the cake.

This is the cake before the addition of the raspberries.  I waited to add them because they can sometimes “weep” and add unwanted moisture.

The side view of this cake.  I just now noticed that you can see a bit of cake through the frosting.  No worries!!  The girls did not notice and this cake was devoured in less than 10 minutes flat!

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My daughter and her team loved the look and taste of this cake!  It was the perfect end of season snack!

October 20, 2016

Birdbath

I have been working on this birdbath for awhile now.  A little bit every once is awhile.  I finally got all the decoupage done.

I do really like how the flowers and butterflies and hummingbirds look.

Now I need to work on the mosaic for the bath bowls.  All my kids are wanting to design it, I think I might let them!

October 12, 2016

A Finish!

I blogged about this tote bag back on October 5th.  Kelly Casanova had led a weave-a-long and I was working on it.  I finally finished my tote bag and couldn’t be happier!!

 

I used her youtube videos to make to whole bag (I figured out the handles myself).

If you would like to try one yourself, her videos are VERY straight forward and easy to follow.  The introduction for this bag can be found here.

 

 

I wove the fabric as one piece using a bag of embroidery threads, only using those that corresponded to the colors of the rainbow.

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The lining – isn’t it fun?!

I had this fun rainbow colored fabric in my stash and decided it would be the perfect addition for the lining of this bag.  Now I have a new tote bag to carry around my knitting projects!

October 5, 2016

Kelly Casanova Tote Bag Weave-A-Long

Kelly Casanova held a weave-a-long a little while ago, but I couldn’t participate at the time.  I finally warped up in mid-September and was on my way.

I used this Patons Metallic as my warp and…

This embroidery floss for the weft.

I am pretty new to weaving and was trying out something new with the different weights for warp and weft.  The coverage is not complete or even.

I did have some trouble with even coverage.  As you can see, the weaving did not beat properly.  My selvages are all over the place.

This is the finished fabric and overall I am pretty pleased with it.  I like the rainbow effect, but am still bothered by the uneven beating.

It’s much more obvious in this picture.  I was worried about my lining showing through.  I have chosen something very colorful and fun so I decided to back this fabric with some black flannel that I had lying around.

I cut the flannel to size and then sewed it to the woven fabric.

Immediately, I warped up for the handles…

I wove for a little bit and one of the warp threads broke.  I used this super, high tech way to add in a new warp thread and kept on weaving.

You can totally see where the new warp thread has been added.  I’m not sure how to fix that, but hopefully after a good wash it will be hidden a bit more.  I know this project has a lot of challenges, but I actually really like it and have learned quite a bit from all the mistakes.  I can’t wait to sew it up properly and finish it.