The end of wedding cake season - thank goodness!

I think that from now on I'm only going to accept wedding cake jobs that take place in the winter.  This summer's heat and humidity did not make for good wedding cake weather. 

Thankfully there were no major mishaps this weekend - even though I piped most of the cake while it sat inside of the refrigerator so the fondant wouldn't get too tacky and the royal icing would set up quickly.

Then we got to spend a lovely hour and a half car ride with my husband holding the cake on his lap the entire time with the air conditioning blasting full force, while he slowly rotated the cake to keep the sun from beating down on one section too long.  That man is fantastic.

This cake consisted of a tier of vanilla cake with strawberry puree and strawberry buttercream, two tiers of chocolate cake with chocolate ganache and chocolate buttercream, and a top tier of sugar free vanilla cake with sugar free vanilla frosting.  I then covered it in ivory fondant, burgundy ribbons, and hand piped burgundy scrollwork. 

Have you ever tried to make a burgundy frosting?  It was the hardest part of making this cake.  I think it took me at least $20 worth of food coloring, and the royal icing is definitely more dye than sugar.  Yummy....

Crewel Summer

 Ugh - I hate to leave the blog sitting unattended for so dang long, but our days have been so busy that by the time I finally get Phoebe into bed for the night, I want to do nothing more than crash on the couch.  Not only am I behind on posting to my own blog - but I'm super far behind in my blog reader, which bums be out.  I've been telling myself that I really need to edit down my subscriptions, but I haven't really had time for that either.  Sigh....

Another thing hindering my posting is that my trusty old Nikon has finally kicked the bucket - hence having to refer to Shake It Photo for blog pics since a new camera is nowhere in our budget.  But anyways, onto more lovely things.  

For mother's day this year, my mom ordered me Alicia Paulson's Daisychain ABC Sampler Kit.  The kit is no longer available, but you can purchase a pdf of the pattern here.

 

In case you've been living in a hole, Alicia writes the loveliest of lovely blogs, Posie Gets Cozy.  This was the very first blog I ever started reading, and is still my favorite to this day.   

This is my first foray into crewelwork and I am loving every minute of it.  I'm especially enjoying working with the Appleton crewel wool, which is so amazingly soft and really makes your satin stitches look much more polished than they actually are :)

I've been curling up on the couch with this on evenings where I'm just too tired to drag myself to the sewing machine, and it has been so calming to just stitch the night away.

My only wish is that there were more than 26 letters in the alphabet!

A little commissioned work-in-progress

The past couple of days I have been busy turning this pile of scraps.....

.....into pages for another soft book of colors.

I was recently contacted by someone who is attending a baby shower and was asked to bring a book for the baby's library.  She had seen my previous post about Phoebe's book of colors and thought it would be perfect for the shower.  What a lucky baby-to-be!  Phoebe absolutely adored hers, and it was especially great for tummy time - not to mention that she knew all of her colors by the time she was one.

I've been having a lovely time working on this project again - especially not having to measure anything and the surprising configuration the final block ends up being. 

How is everyone else's summer going?  Keeping cool I hope!  Tomorrow I'm going to brave the Ann Arbor Art fair with Phoebe, close to 100 degree temperatures, another pregnant lady, and 1-2 more kids under the age of two.  Wish us luck!