My blue sky

I fell in love with Amy Butler's Blue Sky hat pattern immediately. It took many, many months for me to actually make it. Once I decided on the fabric the hat itself came together very quickly. It was an easy pattern to make. I like the look of the hat. I think that if I were to make another one, I would make it a little bigger, I think I would just like it better if the hat were a little bigger, not the brim part though it's huge as it is. The three layers of cotton canvas seemed quite excessive to me. I'm sure that it was for the sake of the brim drape, but it's so thick and heavy. I might try using an interfacing and fewer layers of the canvas next time. It's so thick that you hear your own voice much louder than anyone else's!

My latest obsession

I am the worst about obsessing over things and not being satisfied until I have mastered it. Well, my latest obsession is the French macaron. After seeing the macrons from here, I couldn't rest until I had some of my very own to enjoy. So I found a recipe, well several recipes but the one that I decided upon was for Chocolate Raspberry macarons. I love chocolate and raspberry anything, so what better way to try making macarons?! The recipe can be found here. It was pretty straight forward and relatively easy to make, a little time consuming, but aren't most things that are worth anything? I would have liked the macaron to be a little more pink, the batter was a lovely shade, but alas faded as they were baked. I wanted to make sure that there was a distinct raspberry taste so I added some raspberry extract to the batter as well. You'd think that being a recipe that I have never tried, or even a type of cookie that I've never made, that I would actually stick to the recipe, but no... I did find that the second batch I made were better, I think it was because the batter was room temperature and had rested longer. I plan on making many more of these with lots of other flavor combo. I hear they're better if you wait a day to eat them, but how can you resist?

My three year old told me that they looked like little hamburgers. I guess they do, sort of.

Good Intentions

I do truly wish to update this page on a regular basis. I just tend to get bogged down with stuff, stuff like the load of clean clothes in the dryer right now that's just waiting to be folded. So here's to wishful thinking for the future.

This was a birthday gift made by A for his dad. Well, drawn for his dad. It was then transfered to the shirt using fabric crayons. I truly wasn't impressed with the crayons. I followed the instructions on the box and it didn't really do anything other than make a very light transfer. I ended up heating the shirt with my iron and tracing it on allowing the heat to basically melt the wax onto the fibers. Oh well. It still looks cute, let's hope it holds up after washing!

Such a slacker

How long has it been? Way too long. Just finished the Amy Butler blue sky hat, I will post photos soon!

For the love of cake!

I found myself absorbed all weekend in making a felt cake. Yes, all weekend. I did enjoy it very much, and it was also a gift for a dear friends first birthday! I hope that she will enjoy it as much as I did.

Sew, Mama Sew!

My previous post was featured on Sew, Mama Sew! today much to my surprise!

For those of you interested in the homemade marshmallows there was an article in a Martha Stewart magazine last year that gave a recipe for them. Well, her recipe had eggs in it, I personally didn't want to use eggs, so I searched for another recipe and happened upon this... http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/106/Marshmallows
It is so user friendly and makes the greatest marshmallows!! I decided to make a few flavor modifications and a had several different kinds of marshmallows. You will never want a store bought marshmallow again after you try these!! Just think a nice hot cup of cocoa with a peppermint vanilla marshmallow...yummy!

Oh and the picture was taken by my two and a half year old. One of the best photos ever taken of me! (Or at least one of my favorites!)

Holiday Meme

Sounds fun. I always love answering those questionnaire kind of things!

Do you have a favorite gift that you love to give?
I love to make gift baskets of homemade goodies! Last year I gave gifts baskets filled with marshmallows, hot cocoa mix, cookies and chocolate dipped pretzels, all handmade by me!




This year, I plan on changing it a wee bit to include little apple cider mixes that are in a little pouch that I've made to look like an apple! (Photos of those to come soon!)

What do you like least about the holiday season?
All the commercial glitz. Doesn't any one remember what the real meaning of Christmas is? Seriously, break our your dictionary and look at the definition... Does it say anything like Christmas is the annual holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus? How many people actually remember that or even know that?