Need Some Rest

Hello All,

So sorry I haven't been around!  I've been sick, so I'm taking a few days off to recover.  I just wanted to let you all know so that you don't think I just fell off the face of the earth!  I do have a nice FO to show you when I'm back.  I hope everyone is having a lovely week, and I will be back soon...hopefully! 

Take care

Is It That Time of Year Already??

Hello All,

This is going to be a short post since I'm swamped right now trying to get things done, but I wanted to let you all know that I'm still here.  :-)  I think the days seem to be getting shorter and shorter because I keep running out of time! 

I've noticed that Fall is here, I've accepted it.  The temperature has dropped and that "crispness" is in the air.  The leaves are starting to change and a few have already begun to fall.  I've been trying to ignore it and hang on to the last threads of Summer, but there's no denying it, it's here.  No one else in my house has accepted this; they are all waiting for the "official" first day of Autumn on the 22nd.  They won't even let me hang up the new wreath I bought for the back door!  I must admit, I love Fall decorating, the colours are just too much fun.

This time of year signals to me that it is "time to begin Christmas Gift making".  And I will be honest with you, this year, that phrase is making my go weak in the knees.  I have no idea what to make for everyone!  Not a clue!  I want to make gifts that are adorable, practical and economical all at the same time.  I was hoping to do a lot of stash busting, but alas, I have no idea where to start. So far I have 20 people on my list ranging from the very young to the very old.  They are all quite diverse as well, so it's hard to find the right gifts for each one.  I love the idea of having gifts that are very personalized.  I want to make sure that the person will love and use the gift I'm giving them.  I have been going over ideas for the last two weeks, and still I have come up empty handed.  If anyone has any advice for me, I'd greatly appreciate it!  How do all these other women do it??  It's a mystery to me!

Well, I should be off and back to work, I hope you are all having a wonderful week, and thank goodness the weekend starts tomorrow!! 

Have fun!

A FO and Some Links

Hello All,

I have a finished object picture for you. It is the Smocked Sundress from Heather Ross' book Weekend Sewing. I had a lot of fun making this. It is an easy project, once you get the elastic thread onto the bobbin and loaded properly. I made it a tad smaller than the one in the book. I was thinking of it for a baby about 6-12 months. The sizes in the book were 12 months to size 4. It wasn't hard to make the adjustments since she includes guidelines for making it fit your intended wear. You can even make an adult version of this. Heather has a pattern for it on her website. I think that would be really great for just lounging around, or running to town in the Summer. I'll have to keep it in mind for next year. As I've said before, her book is a great one; I highly recommend it.

I have some links for you of things I've come across that I thought you might like to check out:

These are adorable!! I think anyone who makes handmade gifts has to have them. If you head on over to her blog she's having a give-away for a box of these right now.
I'd love to have these hanging on my tree this year.
I made this on the weekend, and it was a huge hit. I used 3 oz. semi-sweet choc. and 1 oz. bittersweet choc.
This is great. I seen ones like this on the runways at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in NY.
Perfect for your end-of-season jam making.

Well, I hope you are all having a great start to your week!! I'll be back soon with some more pictures.

Take care!

Fall Knitting Inspiration

Hello All,

So sorry I haven't been around this past week. I've been not feeling the best, and things have been a bit busy here. I'm hoping to get more time to blog from now on, but I can't make any guarantees. I'd really love to though.

Now I know I promised some project pictures but my sister took my camera to work to take some pictures of her new office for me to see. We are going to work on decorating it together! Yay!! But that means that the project pictures are going to have to wait till I get it back. Sorry about that!! I was really looking forward to showing you what I've been up to. But hopefully by the time I get it back, I'll have a few more projects done and I can show you those too.

Yesterday, while in the city, I picked up the new Fall/Winter Debbie Bliss magazine. I'm so inspired by it, I hardly have words. The patterns, the yarns, everything is amazing. The photographs are stunning, and truly inspiring. I can hardly wait to make something from it. I also picked up the Fall Vogue Knitting magazine. The sweaters in it are remarkable. I was just blown away by the beauty of them. The colours: amber, cranberry, moss, pumpkin and russet are sensational. I just love it. It makes me wish I was a more experienced knitter so I could make all these gorgeous sweaters.

It feels like Fall to me today. It's still quite warm out, but the leaves are starting to change and fall off. It makes me feel like knitting cozy things, making savory meals and warm desserts. I do love those things about Fall, but I think what I don't like is that it means Winter is coming next! That's something I'm totally not ready for.

Well I should be off to work on things...I need to get the ball rolling this morning. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Take care!

The Lowdown On the 'Vacation'

Hello All,

Well where should I begin?? I promised I would re-cap our little 'vacation,' so here it goes:

Tuesday we had to be out of the house by 8:30 am, because that was when the floor man was coming to start sanding. I had packed most of our stuff the night before since I'm so not a morning person. Mom drove me and the Emmie (the little dog) over to the old house we were staying at, then she went back to pick up Cassie (the lab), and Mittens (our rather large cat). While she was gone, I drug a lot of stuff upstairs and started to put things away. A little while later, Mom came back and said that she had a little accident with the kitty litter box, and somehow had spilled pee all down the front of her (and even into her shoe) when she was trying to get it out of the bathroom, so we needed to go to the store to get some new litter. We all got in the car, including the cat (he was in a carrier) and drove into town. Cassie went nuts, barking and whining, as soon as we got there. It was so bad that while in the bank, Mom said she could hear her inside! I was so embarrassed!! Finally we left and went back. By this time I was in desperate need of some coffee, so I put a pot on and we enjoyed some time sitting out in the front porch. After awhile, it started to get a bit more damp and cold out and the wind picked up. We heard a big bang from upstairs so we thought we should check on the cat (who was locked into the bathroom up there so he wouldn't run away). Mom went in there to check and came out all panicked because she couldn't find him, so I went in to look and found him squeezed underneath the tub, he was perfectly fine, thankfully. The noise was from one of the upstairs window's had blown open. On the way out of the bathroom, I tried to shut the door but it wouldn't latch (yes, it was so old that it didn't have a knob, but a latch thing, that was really quite complicated). Mom tried it, but when she got it latched the latch-lifter part fell inside the bathroom, so now we had locked the cat in there and couldn't get it open from the outside! We had to drive all the way home to get a knitting needle to lift the latch to get him out. Once we got back and had gotten the dogs to settle down, Mom happened to notice that her lap was wet, I guess Emmie had peed on her while sitting on her knee. So we had to drive all the way home again for her to change. While we were there, we noticed that the sander wasn't very loud and thought that the cat could come back for the time being since he was not enjoying himself being squeezed under the tub in fear. We went back and picked him up and took him home, where he really did seem much happier. We went back to the place and had some lunch, then about an hour later, Mom noticed that Emmie had peed on her a second time! She wanted to go back home to change again. But by this time the rain and wind had increased making it quite cold, even inside since it is a bit drafty in there, what with it being old and all. So we decided we would pack things up and head back home. We found out that morning that we could still sleep in our house until he started to put the finish on the floors which wouldn't be for about four days, and boy can I tell you, I have never been so happy to get back to my own home before!! Trying to get the dogs to settle down there was unbelievable, so it was such a relief to go home where they were use to being.

This is a picture of our kitchen all plastic-wrapped.

The next few days, we spent either upstairs in our rooms, or downstairs in the basement. We couldn't walk on the floors while he was sanding, but we could after he left in the evening, however, the dogs couldn't. It all worked out though because we had a way for them to get inside and outside without going near the floors. The only problem was, that in order to get from upstairs to the basement, you had to either go out the front door and around the house outside and come in the basement door, or climb over the banister, down onto the library table, then onto the desk, then jump by the dinning room table (all this stuff is in the entrance way) down onto the floor which from there you could go down the stairs. During these few days, I got to finish some projects (there will be pictures to come in the next few days). It was good for me to be stuck in my room all day, because it forced me to work. I might have to keep that in mind when I have my next deadline looming!

By Saturday afternoon, he was ready to put the first coat of finish on, so Mom and I took the dogs and went for a drive, which I must admit was quite the thing because Cassie would not settle in the car and just kept barking and whining. We couldn't go back to the old resort because there were other people staying there and we didn't think they would appreciate the dogs running around. After a few hours, we thought we should go back home and feed the dogs and check on the smell. We were hoping it didn't smell too much so that we could sleep in our rooms because we really had no other plan. Well, needless to say, it stunk so incredibly bad. The fumes were so thick, that when you walked into the entrance way, you could actually feel them. It definitely ruled out sleeping in our rooms. We took the cat (who had been shut in the upstairs bathroom with a towel in front of the door) because we didn't want him staying in the smell, and we went back out for another drive. We went and got some dinner, then sat out by the bridge to think of what we could do for sleeping arrangements. Sadly, the only thing that we could come up with was to sleep in our garage. It has a heater, and all the furniture was already in there, so it seemed like the only logical place to stay. I must admit that I never thought I would sleep in a garage, but it really wasn't all that bad. It was sort of like camping I guess, if I had ever been camping, which I haven't. We have a freezer in there, and used a cooler with ice as a fridge for our food, and both Mom and I had our own couches to sleep on, Cassie had a chair, Mittens had his free roam of the place, and Emmie slept on the couch with Mom. We had to spend two nights out there. It was definitely an experience. The only downfall, was that since the china cabinet inside the house was pushed up against the door that leads from the garage into the house, we had to use the garage side door and go across the deck to the side door on the house to get in. We had to do this even in the night (and I must say that those were two of the coldest nights of the whole summer) when we needed to use the bathroom...not too fun.

That is our food station, and our lighting....as you can see we even brought the tea kettle.

This is Cassie sleeping in her chair.

This is Mittens, doesn't he look relaxed??

All in all, it wasn't really a 'vacation' but it was ok. I wouldn't do it again, but it was better than it could have been I'm sure. Being able to stay in our house for most of the days was very nice, and the garage really wasn't all that bad.

This is Emmie, she is looking over the back of the couch at me. Isn't she cute??

Well, I will be back soon with some pictures of some projects, until then, please enjoy yourselves and have a wonderful Labour Day weekend!!

Take Care!!

Old-Time Vacation

Hello All,

Well I had a nice relaxing weekend. How about you? I spent a lot of time with my family and I even got to try out my sister's kayaks with her yesterday. We had a ton of fun out on the water. It was nice to just be able to relax and enjoy a little bit of what is left of Summer. The weather has been better here lately, and I think it is going to warm up some again.

This week, my family and I (including the animals), well all except for my Dad who is planning on braving the smell, have to move out of our house because we are getting our floors re-finished. My sister is staying at her boyfriend's parents' house, so it's just Mom and I and the pets who are going. We are staying just up the road from our place at what use to be an old summer home, back in the day, for some very wealthy Americans. It's really quite beautiful. It's like going back in time when you step in there. I really love it, and am so excited that we get to spend the week there.

Since there is no TV or Internet connection there, I'm bringing along my knitting and my sewing machine. I'm hoping to have lots of time to work on projects.

Well that's all for now! I don't think I will have a chance to check in until next Monday, so have a great week all!!

I'm off for vacation!!

Confessions of a Wedding Cake Baker - Day 4

Good Morning,

Well it's all over. I haven't heard from any of the wedding attendiees yet to know how it went over, but I did get you all tons of pictures!! I'll try to upload as many as I can. My server is quite slow today, so I'll see how many I can do.

I should start back where I left off yesterday. Now let me see, where was I?? Or right, I was going to do the stacking and piping. Well the stacking went much better than I was expecting. I was quite worried about how I would pop each tier on top without messing up all the icing, but it worked out great. My sister guided me and I just slowly snuck my fingers out from underneath it. Then it was on to the piping. I did a #12 dot bottom boarder around all cakes, then I did a #352 leaf boarder around the top. For that, I did two rows slightly spaced apart so they would overlap. To finish it all off, I piped #3 dots in triangles on the bottoms and along the tops under the leaves. I was following the design for Martha's wedding cake in her baking handbook.

Next we did the flowers. I say we, because my sister was the one to arrange them all and tape them together to make pretty little bouquets. We placed them together, and then we were ready for delivery. Now if you notice that those are silk flowers and not the fresh ones I was talking about earlier, well there's the little story behind that: Yesterday morning my Mom was reading in Martha's wedding cake book about putting fresh flowers onto cakes and she said that you can't have the flowers touching the cake incase they are posioness. Well, I freaked out (because this was completely last minute), and did some online searching and Mom called the florist, trying to figure out if the flowers we had were or were not eatable, but we both came up with nothing. There was no definate answer, everyone just said "well, it's better to be on the safe side." Then I came across a post by a lady who had used eatable flowers in a meal she prepared and her son happened to have hay fever, and eating the meal almost sent him to the hospital. This got me thinking about how many people seem to have some kind of allergies, and I decided that it really is better to be on the safe side. But now I had no flowers for the cake. Mom came up with a brilliant idea, and ran downstairs to get a wreath she had and we started to take out the flowers that were pink and white. Luckily my Mom has impeccible taste and would only have flowers that looked like real ones, no tacky ones here! When all was said and done, I was happier than I thought I ever could be with how the cake turned out.