we interrupt the serious news...

to bring you this bit of fluff ...... today this quilt...flower power

went to live in its new home ... it needed to be purple ... and it needed to have flowers ... and it needed to be girlie ... Auntia chose the fat quarters for me since i have a lotta trouble getting my fabric choices to quiet down and stop shouting ... it is a Happy Hour pattern and the piecing only took a few hours - the quilting and the binding were a totally different story...
and this afghan...totally impractical
blossomed from this ... and joined flower power...now jump into the gift bag and begone!!!
for the past few weeks, Auntia and i have been putting together fun stuff for the baby shower for Mrs. Blakesmom ... look at the beautiful diaper cake Auntia made...oooo!!! and no calories!!!
she found a tutorial here ... Auntia's version is pretty doggone impressive ... it was a LOT of work - diapers were not meant to be rolled up like that and it gave me a whole new appreciation for cigar-rollers letmetellya ... i only rolled twenty or thirty and i thought my hands were gonna fall off ... Auntia also made this pretty little daisy cake...basket weave is not for the faint of heart
it was a white layer cake with seedless raspberry jam filling and vanilla butter cream frosting ... the leaves are from the peppermint plant that lives in her room - who grows mint inside?!? the cake was dee-licious ...... and now that the baby shower (i have more pictures - do you want to see them?) is over, we will return to our regularly scheduled program ... i have really, really missed reading blogs and posting......

PPSS BOM - Act III

last month's Paper-Pieced Saturday Sampler BOM meeting wasn't as boisterous as usual ... More Than A Gardner and Peggy Money Penny and Peggy Perfect showed up for the 10:00 instead of the early meeting but it was still loud and crowded ... lottsa grumbling ... and grouching ... the Hoarse Whisperer asked if it was ever gonna stop taking three hours to make one 6-inch block ... i'm thinking that if we'd all stop whining and start sewing we just might show some progress

and maybe ... just maybe ... if i would pay attention to the little numbers on the foundation paper instead of adding pieces whenever i decide to i might not have to rip out so many stitches
i'm gonna blame some of my poor judgment on inhaling smoke from a burning electric motor ... when i was assembling my blocks a couple of weeks ago, Auntia was in the kitchen making frosting for her cake decorating lesson ... i smelled burning plastic ... and heard a whole lotta discouraging words ... and then more smoke wafted up the stairs ... along with even more disgruntled language ... then the front door slammed ... and slammed again ... when i peeked down the stairs i saw some stomping and flailing and some huffing and puffing ... i opened two windows and hid in the magick shoppe till Auntia's temper cooled ... i gave my poor little hand mixer a decent burial after he stopped spewing sparks and smoldering ... and when the air was finally clear i was able to finish my blocks...Jack in the Pulpit and Big T
i have seven teapots and a teacup stitched for alternate blocks...bor-ing!
i'm already bored with the floss colors ... i might end up breaking my own rule and adding some more greens and yellows
even though i told myself
no!
don't do it!
this is a blue and white quilt ... you are already breaking the rules by allowing any green and yellow
do you remember what happened with Sunny-Side Up?!? your blue and white quilt looked liked fried eggs!
just shut up and stitch with what you have!
i dunno ... maybe it's just a delayed response to smoke and sparks and flames

cake decorating 201

Auntia and Mrs. Moth decided to learn cake decorating ... separately ... Auntia went to Jo-Ann Fabric for the first course last year and i posted about it here ... Mrs. Moth went to Michaels for the first course early this year and i didn't post about it cuz i was too busy eating the cakes that she made each week and i didn't get any pictures .... they took the second course together ... last night was their graduation...last picture first cuz they are even prettier than their cakes

and i drove over just before the end of class so i could see them working their magick and make sure that at least one of the cakes came home with me...check out those aprons!who has a problem with asymmetry?who does not have a problem with asymmetry?
i was making them nervous and disrupting the class ... so i went shopping while they finished up...Auntia's finished cake
they learned how to basket weave with frosting...Angela's finished cake
the flowers taste like a spoon full of pretty sugar - and no pollen! i dunno how Mrs. Moth's cake tastes ... but Auntia's is To. Die. For.
i wonder ... if i make them some more aprons ... will they keep me in cakes for the rest of forever?

apronathon

kinda sums up what i've been doing since noon ... Auntia and Mrs. Moth are taking the second of the Wilton cake decorating courses ... one of them who shall remain anonymous but her initials are Angela didn't have an apron ... she's been borrowing Little Nonnie's Sylvester and Tweety apron for the classes ... since the last class is tomorrow night and i am so incredibly proud of my baby girls' frosting flowers and i needed to sew aunt hill into an apron for my sister, i decided to make aprons today ... Auntia is busy frosting cakes so i had to use the plate holder as a mannequin...aunt hill and her slice of life

aunt hill's backup plan
one guess who this one is for
can you tell who her favorite transformer (robots in disguise) is?
the power of the dark side
purple tulips and bumblebees for Mrs. Moth
i managed to break the frosting birds that are supposed to go on the cakes - they shattered like glass and made a mess all over the floor ... anywho ... these are the flowers that are gonna go on the cakes...daffodils and roses and daisies and cherry blossoms and primroses and pansies and violets! suh-weet!!!
we managed to salvage two of the four birds - but they don't have beaks anymore
i dunno if i'll try to make three aprons in one afternoon again ... Sven and i feel like we've been beaten with a stick

cake decorating 101

i'm showing the finished product first because the journey to here from there started out kinda ugly ...... Auntia has been taking JAF's Wilton method cake decorating classes for the past month ... the first night consisted of the students watching the instructor decorate a cake with all the magic and potions that someone who decorates cakes for a living has in her bag of tricks ... which is a lot of magic ... all the students were so excited, thinking that in four short weeks they, too, would be decorating perfect cakes covered with roses and garlands, shells and scrolls, sweet peas and vines ... during the next two classes everyone practiced squishing out frosting onto plastic-covered designs ... and then they were armed with a recipe for butter cream frosting that they were to bring (already tinted) to the next class, along with a real cake...

...this was the cake that Auntia started out with ...... she wanted to decorate a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting ...... i don't know about anyone else, but when i need a better-than-good-enough cake, i don't wait until five hours before the deadline to try out a recipe that i have never used before, using techniques that are a mystery, and expect perfection ... but i am not my daughter ... she grated the carrots, beat the batter, poured the gloppy mixture into two pans, and placed them in the oven for the required amount of time ... the bottom half of each cake was raw (Chef Gordon Ramsey would say it's raw!!! you'll f#@&ing kill someone!!! ... seriously ... who would want to work for someone who has a mouth as ugly as his?) and wouldn't come out of the pans ... there was no way she could take them to her class ... she was incredibly frustrated and was running out of time ... so i dug out a spice cake mix and baked it for her (enabler) ... she had to level the layers when she arrived at class ... and then glue them together with frosting ... Auntia said they used meringue powder and parchment paper to give the appearance of fondant (blech - i think fondant tastes like drywall putty smells)...

... her instructor took some action shots when she found out that we have blogs ... this is Auntia squishing centers into her peach-colored star flowers......and this is Auntia admiring her handiwork ... the lady in the background made a clown on the top of her cake - it was scary ... her daughter made a cake covered with pink and purple star flowers and a garland around the edges ... two sisters made pink ribbons on their cakes (for their mother, who is recovering from a mastectomy) ... i oohed and aahed at every one's masterpieces when i arrived (except the clown - i stayed away from that one) and then was assigned to carrying that slippery, heavy cake out to the car...

...seriously heavy ... the recipe for the frosting called for three cups of fat (two cups of Crisco and one half cup each of butter and cream cheese) and four pounds (yes, pounds) of powdered sugar ... and she used all but a cup or two...

...that's a lot of frosting ...... i love frosting (fat and sugar - what's not to love? when i was a kid i would mix Crisco with sugar and eat it - my mother caught me one day and told me that i'd get worms if i didn't stop ... so i stopped getting caught) ...... but i did not love the frosting on Auntia's cake ... and neither did she ... it was pretty, but it tasted like ... goo...
...so we scraped off the frosting and ate the cake ... i think i have cleaned up all of the fly away frosting that escaped the beaters when she was mixing it - there were little bits of hardened frosting all over the kitchen ...... and i still want to know when she's gonna make a rose