Fun with Patchwork Pillows

I made a bunch of pillows this weekend. 3, to be exact. It was great. Lindsey and I found the pattern on Alicia Paulson's website and I think it changed my life. Alicia calls it a magic patchwork technique and she is not joking. The pattern was well worth the $6 it cost to download it. In the pictures above you can see the works in progress. We started with a trip to Candlelite Quilts to select our fabrics. Lindsey has a great eye for colors and patterns. She went with yellows and blues for hers and I chose greens and reds for mine. Then we stopped in to JoAnn to get pillow forms, interfacing, and piping. I'd never worked with piping before so I was nervous about that aspect of the project. Then we cut squares and about an hour and a half later we had these. Amazing! That's Lindsey, there working away on her perfect-for-a-summer-cottage pillow. (Work in progress photos credit to Maria.) Unfortunately the photo we took of her final product is slightly blurred but you get the idea.

Anyway, my pillow was so popular in my household that the kids fought over it and we decided it would be fun to let them make their own. So back to Candlelite Quilts I went, both kids in tow, on Saturday morning. They each selected 4 fabrics, though they would have come home with about 20 each if I had let them. You really should see them in action. Annika has a good eye (she's 6!) and she selected the greens that you see in the pillow above with stripes and dots. She's good, huh? And Gunnar is a little more bold in his selections. He started with black prints and added in some vibrant colors. He has a rather eclectic fabric stash at home. I was determined not to intervene in their selection or layout. I didn't. You can see the results.

It's a fun, fast project. I highly recommend it!

Hope you had a wonderful weekend.

Baby Britches

I completed a pair of baby bloomers. Happy day! In truth, "completed" is a stretch because I haven't yet stitched the elastic casing on the legs and waist closed. I'll get to it. Eventually. At any rate, this is an accomplishment for me because I haven't done any garment sewing since I was about 12 and I wasn't particularly good at it back then. But I got ambitious and wanted to try. I've had a bee in my bonnet to sew baby clothes for my various baby relatives and in particular a baby that will be here in the late fall. I can hardly stand the anticipation! I just love babies and sewing for the babies I love is so satisfying. I hope these fit!

The pattern is from Emma Hardy's book Making Children's Clothes. The fabric is by Sandy Gervais for Moda.

Loving Lavender

Isn't lavender lovely? I've been inspired to add more lavender to my life by reading Kaari Meng's book Home Sewn and looking at her incredible store French General. (When I say "looking" I mean browsing virtually. Someday maybe I will go see the real thing.) She infuses her life with lavender and it seems like a good thing to do. It makes me feel like frolicking through the French countryside. I've also been inspired to bring more lavender into my life from reading a favorite (and non-classic-literature-grade-writing) novel. And then on top of that my gorgeous friend, Maria, came over last night and suggested we make some sachets. So we did. It was fun and fulfilling. You can see the results here. Maria is also the art director (for my imaginary craft company) and she gets full credit for staging the photos shown. She's great. Really, really great and I'm lucky to have her in my life.

And while I'm at it, thank you to all of my loving and supportive friends and family for always being there. Love you all.

What I've Been Up To Lately

Hello there! I know, it's been a while since I posted anything. Sorry about that. To quickly recap, here is what I've been up to:

Made a birthday bag for a dear friend

Bought some fabric

Had a wonderful, fun, relaxing and delightful Easter with my family and friends

Made a tasty sour cream coffee cake

That about sums it up. I'm also busy working on some sewing projects and if I ever finish one I'll let you know.

I hope you are having a joyful spring!

Red Velvet Afternoon

Happy Monday! I hope you had a nice weekend. I sure did. We had gorgeous weather, perfect for bubble-blowing and flip-flop-buying. We are now back to typical spring weather in the northeast but the lovely weather we had this weekend is enough to remind us that warm weather will be here soon.

This weekend also brought the release of New Moon on DVD and if you are a Twilight junkie like me, that is certainly worth celebrating. I did so in style, with my gorgeous friend Maria, by perfecting Red Velvet cupcakes. Actually, that's a gross exaggeration. We do not get the credit for this particular version of perfection. We made an excellent batch of cupcakes by following (almost exactly) a recipe perfected by many outstanding bakers before us. Here is the photo evidence:

This recipe was easy. That's a primary factor for me in successful baking ventures. Many of the red velvet recipes I have tried required a lot of separate mixing of ingredients and careful blending but this one worked like a charm just by throwing everything in the mixer and letting it go. Well, mixing the wet stuff first and then adding all the dry and mixing - no separate bowls. They cupcakes are tasty and not dry at all. And the frosting - can you go wrong with sugar, butter, and cream cheese? I don't think so.

I got this recipe from my neighbor, who got it from The Cupcake Project, and prior to the cupcake project it went through all sorts of revisions.

2 1/2 c. cake flour (we used all-purpose and it was fine)

1 1/2 c. sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1 tbs cocoa powder

1 tsp salt

2 eggs

1 1/2 c. vegetable oil

1 c. buttermilk

2 tbs red coloring

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp white vinegar

Mix the wet ingredients together and add the dry. For real, that's all we did. Then bake at 350 for 20 min, but start checking on them at 15 in case your oven is different. You don't want to overbake them.

Frosting:

8 oz cream cheese

1/4 c. butter

3 c. powdered sugar

Mix like well. Slather on the cupcakes. Eat your heart out.

Rainy Day Baking

Is there anything than baking on a rainy day? No. Well, maybe. Okay, I suppose if I really think about it there are a lot of things that are better than baking on a rainy day, so I will revise and say that one of my favorite things to do is bake on a rainy today.
Today we made these. They are Chocolate Snowquakes, from Country Living. The recipe was first (or so I think) in their Christmas magazine 6 years ago but now it appears in the Country Living Merry & Bright book.
They are so very good. In fact, they are Annika's favorites and she always asks to make them. They are so good. Did I say that already?

Recipe:
1 stick unsalted butter
3/4 c. dark brown sugar
1/4 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 c. dutch process cocoa
1 1/4 c. flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 c. milk chocolate chips, optional
Cream together the sugars and butter until fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients until combined. Add the chips, if desired. Roll the dough into 1 inch balls (I use a small cookie scoop and skip the hand-rolling) and roll the balls in powdered sugar. Bake at 350 for 9 minutes. Eat and repeat.

Everyday Cards

One of my true crafting loves is card-making. And yet, I'm terrible at sending cards. "How can that be?" I have often asked myself. I don't have an answer right now. It's more of a rhetorical question. I suspect one possible reason is that I never have a card handy because I don't have a stash of good everyday cards. You could argue that I should be able to dash into the craft room and make one at a moment's notice. Yes, you could argue that. And you wouldn't be wrong, but you wouldn't exactly be right either, again for reasons I am yet to understand. But I decided to start building a ready stash of everyday cards in an attempt to better myself at the art of card sending, which is different than card making. A few of my results are shown here.

These cards are all made using Stampin' Up! stamps, inks, and papers and some Memory Box stamps and papers too. And because I'm a glitter fanatic, I embellish almost every card with Stickles (by Ranger) and a Gelly Roll Stardust pen (by Sakura).

The next step is overcoming my inability to put cards in the mail and send them. I'm working on it.