More Cake

This weekend Jenny's mom was here for her birthday, which was a perfect opportunity for yet another layer cake. This one is a 4 layer lemon mascarpone cake. I used an epicurious recipe but I don't think I would make this particular cake again. The cake itself was a bit dry and spongy, and not as moist and springy as I would have liked. I made a lemon vanilla buttercream that was just lightly sweetened and balanced out the lemon curd-mascarpone filling which was very sweet and tart. I am always happy for a chance to practice royal icing flower making:

It ended up being a perfect early Spring birthday cake.

My Nest

Hello again! I'm posting twice in a week how unusual.

My house was featured on the Housemartin blog today. Pam came over last week to photograph the house. If you live in Portland, be sure to visit her amazing store, Ink and Peat on North Williams. It was so interesting and fun to see someone else's view of our home.

photo by Pam Zsori

Nesting

My birthday was last weekend. I had a small get together with some friends. This year we decided to make a nest cake. This was a labor of love, let me tell you. I think Jenny and I spent 5 hours on Sunday putting it together, then dismantling it then reconstructing it. It was all worth it. The cake is the coconut layer cake from Baking Illustrated. The cake was delicious! So coconutty! The nest was made of coconut and meringue which were baked in a bowl to achieve the nest shape. The eggs, leaves and flowers are marzipan. If you like marzipan but not the price, I recommend making it yourself. It's actually ridiculously easy and so much less expensive.



I've had nests and eggs on my mind a lot lately. We're thinking about getting some chickens. We would get bantams because they are small and cute and I love all things small and cute. The woman at the garden store showed us one of the bantam chicken eggs and we were sold. They are so adorable! I am hoping we can get the chicken set up figured out quickly so we can go get the little chicks. There is one variety of chicken I like called brahma chicken, I would like to name one Barack Obrahma. Ha ha. I kill me.

Oh, and I've just added a big batch of new sewing kits to the shop.

5 Targets

I went to 5 Target stores, one of them twice, today to get this bounty! The new Orla Kiely line is so lovely. We got the canisters at three different stores. We still didn't manage to find any of the textiles like the dish towels, aprons and place mats. We'll keep checking. I will stay strong.

I've been embroidering like crazy lately. There are some new framed pieces in the shop. These are so fun. I've been going through all of my sketch books and turning various drawings into embroideries.

Peas and Jam

On a recent thrifting trip, I bought a vintage craft book. It's from 1981 and while that's not usually a decade whose crafts I admire, this particular book had some real gems! Like giant crayons with faces in a GIGANTIC crayon "box". Adorable. Anyway it also had a pattern for mason jar potholders. I'm not sure if you know about my obsession with jars. Really, I love and collect all sorts of containers. But my favorite is the jar. I like them teeny tiny and super big. I also seem to have a bowl collecting problem, so much so that there are always bowls which cannot fit into the cabinets so they sit on counters and shelves. I can't seem to resist buying a lovely bowl or jar. So how could I resist making jar shaped potholders?



Clearly, I could not.

Coasters

I had the idea for these woolen coasters before Christmas, and finally got the chance to make some. They are made with 100% wool felt and wool roving. The flowers are all needle felted. I have to say that if I could only choose one craft to do forever it would probably be needle felting. I love it so. These are in the shop.

Making and Naming New Softies...

Is my true calling.
Meet Fenway, Danforth, Piedmont, Omar, Pilar and Murray:

What could be better than...

Coconut cream pie with hot coffee? Perfect for a January afternoon.

New Year Ramblings

We've been doing a lot of nothing around here lately. It's been very refreshing. In between doing nothing I have been knitting and working on a few very late Christmas gifts. Namely this one for my niece, Olivia.

I could see myself tossing everything aside for the world of miniatures! Is there anything more adorable than tiny versions of everyday objects? I think not. I have left the house unpainted so that she will have something to do when she gets it. With the new baby in the house, it's always good to have something to keep the 5 year old's hands busy. The house is from Michael's and is actually a cd holder. I believe it's the same one that Angry Chicken mentioned awhile back.

I did manage to get a huge shop update done yesterday, with lots more to come.

I've been meaning to get these photographed and blogged about for awhile now. Inspired by all the great pine cones out there lately, I came up with these little pendants. I love the way they turned out. I am particularly fond of the white one.



eta: I almost forgot to mention that I was interviewed by Christine of Flapper Girl Creations. The interview is here.

Happy New Year!

I'm quite happy to be done with 2008. It was a hard year around here and for a lot of people I know. But the good thing about hard years is that they end. And thankfully so.

A few ideas I have for 2009:
I've got some new crafty projects in the works I'm excited about
I'd like to get a few new wholesale accounts
I hope to be blogging more regularly and keeping updated with Twitter.
Some budget planning is in the works
I also plan to do lots of organization and destashing

Here's to a whole new year of possibilities and handmade goodness. Hooray!

Seasons Greetings

Hello!
I have missed my little blog these past few months. I thought I would pop in with a quick update and a link to me at Twitter
Keep up with me there and I promise to be back here soon.

I'm planning a big shop update today and tomorrow. New sewing kits, coffee cozies and some sweet little button sets are coming!

Summer Things

Things I'm loving right now:
1::my garden

2::sewing for a new baby niece due next month. made using this pattern

3::canning jam
4::eating homemade jam on freshly baked bread YUM!
5::these plastic screw on lids for canning jars. they have changed my life.

Things I'm not loving right now:
1::new neighbors and their heavy metal band
2::cabbage worms
3::aphids
4::powdery mildew
5::scary noise my car is making when I turn left


Things I'm looking forward to:
1::figuring out what to do with the giant bag of blueberries picked this weekend
2::holding a new baby that arrived last month
3::starting on the new baby's quilt
4::buying some of the Michael Miller organic fleece for the back of baby's quilt
5::upcoming trip to Seattle, Beard Papa, here I come!

Happy Independence Day

Have a safe and fun holiday!

Summer Sweets

I made my first strawberry rhubarb pie last week with berries picked from a local farm. I used the recipe from this book. If you don't have this book, and you like to bake, I strongly recommend it. It's huge and thus far every recipe I have tried but one (and I think it was my fault) has turned out perfectly. I like that all the recipes are tested over and over until they are perfect. I also used the pie crust recipe from the book for the first time and it was great. I think it's going to be my new pie crust recipe, perfectly flaky and lightly sweetened. Unfortunately, said pie was devoured before it could be photographed.

I did make some donuts yesterday and managed to photograph them. The recipe is here. They were delicious. Not too sweet and definitely not as heavy as fried donuts. I dipped some in cinnamon and sugar and some in powdered sugar. The cinnamon ones were hands down the favorite.

In gardening news, I recently discovered a most unwelcome garden guest, the cabbage worm, happily munching on my broccoli plants. So I mixed up some natural pest spray and pried them off and now I'm on cabbage worm patrol. Other than that, all is well in the garden. I think we'll have some tomatoes within a few weeks. Yippee!

I hope everyone had a nice fourth of July. Ours was very low key except for the neighbors very loud party and the insane amount of fireworks in the neighborhood. Fireworks are illegal in the town I grew up in, so it's still a bit of a shock each year when I start hearing them in the days leading up to the fourth. I like fireworks ok, but I would not be in least bit sad if they were outlawed here. I know many little animals who would be fine with that as well.

I've got family coming to town on Monday and so much work to do around the house. Have a lovely weekend!

Me Hot

It's muy caliente here in Portland today, 97 to be exact.

Yesterday we drove to a local farm and had a picnic with friends under a giant oak tree.


It was such perfect weather, we could see Mt. Hood.


Another set of felted coasters is in the shop. I love these colors together!


I'm off to hug the air conditioner.

Friend Flax

More coffee cozies are in the shop.

I got some new linen over the weekend and have fallen in love with it. It's a bit darker than my usual linen. I find it funny that I have a "usual" linen. Anyway, it's very beautiful and has a really nice drape to it. I bought the last of the bolt, so I'm hoping I can get more. I think linen is the only fabric that looks as good wrinkled as it does nicely pressed.

A couple of new bags:



Some mushrooms, photographed on my new favorite background. I'm trying to use it sparingly so I don't get tired of it's rustic woodiness, though it does seem unlikely that I could get tired of such a thing.

Hello

Some new wooly goods have made their way into the shop the past few days.
Mama Bird and Her Nest:

A Happy Apple Friend:

and some felted coasters:

I just added a new print to the shop also. I used chalk pastels for the first time and I really like the sort of dreamy effect they add.


Have a great weekend!

A Very Nice Day

After getting some work done, we were able to spend some time outside in the sun, it was delightful. It started with gelato and a cappucino on the patio at Mio Gelato down the street, then some time in the garden winding yarn into balls and knitting, followed by a walk to meet a friend for dinner. A perfect summer day. I'm always amazed at how much we miss when we're in the car. You really notice the little things when walking. Today, for example, I fell in love with peonies. Why haven't I planted peonies yet?

I've added a few new prints to the shop.
Small Town:

Business Bear:

and Bedtime Story:

Sun and Prints

The sun has been out for the past two days, and although it's still chilly, it's been so welcome.

I spent a good part of today working on some new art prints. These two are in the shop.



It occurred to me that I've only got a couple of months before I need to get into holiday stock up mode. Scary, huh? It's still hard for me to shift my brain to retail timing. I don't really want to think about Christmas card designs in August, but alas I must.

Hey, It's Raining

Again. And it's going to rain until the end of time, I'm pretty sure.

Anyway, I've just updated the shop with some new cup cozies.


Sorry for the blah post, but I am rained out. I had to turn the heat on this morning, this June morning. WTF?

Happy Thursday! The weekend is coming hurrah!