Experiments in Icing

It was my nieces’ birthdays earlier in the month, and I got to make them birthday cakes. This was a real treat for me, as most of the time there’s not much call for excessively iced cakes round these parts. Seriously, a whole cake is a huge undertaking to eat through, and most people (myself included) find too much icing off-putting. So it’s fun to get a chance to play, though I’m still very much learning when it comes to fancy icing.

As the cakes were for kids, I only used buttercream icing, as fondant seems cruel to me (pretty icing that tastes yuck is not something five year olds appreciate). Niece the elder asked for strawberry flavour and ‘cake’ for the theme.

I also had a bunch of cake left over, and even more buttercream, so decorated some mini-cakes too. The great thing about these little ones is they’re all gluten and egg free.

Cake number two, for niece the younger. She asked for chocolate flavour and ‘a picture of her’ for the decoration. I went with a ‘thematic character portrait of her’ for the overall theme. She likes puzzles, music, pirates, butterflies ... well, take a look. I’m pretty proud of the result.

I’ll be waiting to see if I get to do another fun cake for nephews birthday mid-year, or if this was my annual icing extravaganza. Either way, I’m pleased I won’t have to eat more icing for a few months.

Pterodactyl Appliqué

When browsing sewing blogs lately I’ve been struck by the pretty effects achieved by appliqué. Especially machine appliqué – while I love handcraft, I feel I have enough multi-year heirloom quality projects on the go, and would rather like some relatively instant gratification instead. 

I’m not very experienced with using sewing machines. While I certainly learnt enough from mum to be bored in home-ec at school, it’s not something I’ve used much since I was 14 or so. I confess I had a tendency to get very frustrated whenever the project went awry, or, more commonly, I somehow jammed the machine yet again. While yelling at your sewing machine may at times seem essential, none of my family seemed to appreciate it!  In fact, my sister often got so sick of it she’d wander along and finish off my projects after I’d stormed off in a huff. Still, I think I have a bit more patience now – or at least am better at taking a break before I start shouting – so have recently waded into the waters of machine sewing once again. It’s surprisingly fun.

After the obligatory apron to get me back in the swing of machining, I’ve moved on to some simple appliqué. I saw this great idea for using an old fitted sheet to make a simple skirt, and have made a skirt each for both nieces. They’re entirely from scraps – the blue appliqué material offcuts from a beautiful summer dress my sister made me and the red and green from our box of scraps.

The silhouettes are from a series of handy little stencil books I have, though I just made up the grass. I think that these dinosaurs are adorable. Next sewing project is an appliqué skirt for myself, featuring even more pterodactyls – doesn’t everyone want a skirt covered in pterodactyls?

Quilled icicles

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone. Instead of acknowledging it is boiling hot summer here, I am continuing with the theme of Christmas decorations. Here is a variation on the quilled snowflake – quilled icicles. My mum expressed a desire to hang a number of my snowflakes up for decoration this year. A little concerned that I wouldn’t have the time to make enough, and enjoying variety, I came up with these icicles instead. 

 

Like snowflakes, each is different. For some extra glam they’re sprayed with sparkly hairspray – I normally spray my finished quilling with matt hairspray as a fixative, and as mum asked for ‘more glitter’ this was an easy way to make them shiny. I’m pleased with the effect, it adds a bit of shine, especially when they catch the light, without overwhelming them, which I was a little concerned about.

Up close I like the more open scroll-work ones best, especially these ones that I based off swirling decoration we hang on the tree.

I was surprised to find that when hung my favourites shifted to these more geometric ones, which look better as their shape comes across clearly and has greater interest from a distance.

However this kiwi-themed one takes the all round prize – while not my favourite up close or hanging, it looks good doing both, and is very easy to make.

Altogether a fun experiment. I think I’ll make more – perhaps in time for next Christmas.