Photos from December and January

As promised, here's the stuff I've made since you heard from me in December.


Baby bib for baby Sebastian. I'm not super happy with how this turned out, namely, the embroidery. I'd never done embroidery before and it ended up being too hard to read. I did a top stitch on the bib using my blind hem foot, which was a tip my sewing instructor told us. It gave the bib a professional look and a few people thought I'd bought it.


This took up most of my time in December. I made this for my boyfriend's mom and fiancé and I am very pleased with it. The fabric is Orchard House by Jeanne Horton for Windham Fabrics. I was adamant about finding fabric the recipients would like. At first, I wasn't a big fan of the almost upholstery-esque patterns but by the time I had finished the quilt, I was having separation anxiety about giving the quilt away!


This was my third embroidery undertaking, the second one I did from Little Stitches. I whipped up this little coaster for my sister and trust me, it's not meant to be a showcase of any of my skills. I even ripped the top of it accidentally. It was nice to do a bit of free motion quilting as I hadn't done any since my first quilt.


These were my second and fourth embroidery projects, respectively. You can see I changed the stitch on the pink thread as I liked the satin stitch look better. These are mini pin cushions that fit into the sewing kit my mom and I have (we have the same one).


Oh look, a rare photo of me in it. This was the pillow case I whipped up last night with my mom. I got us both pillow case kits after I saw some cute cat fabric I thought she'd like. My fabric coincidentally matches the quilt I made, which is why I picked that kit. It took my mom and I a few hours to make these but theoretically, it's supposed to be very quick. We had a few hiccups along the way; namely, my mom did. Something like not noticing all the layers weren't pinned down until after
she'd sewn the cuff on.

Honestly, I thought I had more photos to share. Whoops. I still have yet to take a photo of the pajama pants I made and I do want to do a recipe post sometime soon. I guess the backlog of photos seemed bigger in my head.

Happy 2013

I've been a terrible blogger, but, I've been a very busy blogger!

2013 is off to a good start so far. I've started another class, advanced sewing, and I'm working on making this dress (the green one):



It's going to be quite a challenge but I'm excited about it. I'm also working on making this at home (the one the model is wearing):



Sometime soon I will be taking another quilt class. It's a sampler quilt and we will learn several blocks. I don't think I mentioned but I joined the local quilt guild. I've been to 3 meetings (they're monthly) and I quite enjoy it. The 3 ladies who sat at my table in our quilting class also joined so I already have a group of friends. The 4 of us are going to the International Quilt Show in Cincinnati in Ohio and I'm excited.

I've also started doing embroidery. I bought myself Doodle Stitching and my sister got me Aneela Hoey's book, Little Stitches for Christmas. I've done one thing out of each book so far.

Away from the crafting talk, I'm very glad 2012 is over. I thought about it, and all in all, it was a disappointing year in a lot of ways. I spent a lot of 2012 stressed out and unhappy and it definitely reached a head during the Christmas rush. December was a rough month, and the weeks leading up to Christmas were stressful. Having a few skills under my belt this Christmas, I put too much pressure on myself to incorporate them all. Next year I need to be more realistic and I need to start earlier.

The good news is, things are on the upswing again. I've started going back to the gym regularly, I'm taking it slower with the classes, and there's already been some talk about the job thing, which you'll understand if you know me through more than this blog.

My next post after this will be only photos to show what's been going on with me lately.

Wilton Gum Paste & Fondant Class 4

Last Thursday was my last ever cake decorating class! Truth be told, I was kind of dreading it all week as fondant really isn't my thing and the classes were taking away from sewing time. However, once I was there, I was a little sad it was my last class. There are a few other Wilton classes but they don't interest me at this point, and the one class is more gum paste. So for right now, this is the end of the line for me and cake classes.

As I mentioned in my post about classes 1 and 2, I missed class 3 due to the instructor rescheduling it. I believe they learned the mum and the daisy, plus they covered a cake board. The whole covered cake board thing really doesn't appeal to me so it wasn't a big deal I missed it.

In class 4, we learned:

• Creating Geometric Designs Using Cut-Outs, Overlays, and Inlays
• Eyelet, Ruffle, and Ball Borders
• Covering a cake with fondant

I didn't bother with an overlay or inlay or whatever it is. They do make your cake look pretty awesome, though. If you don't know what I mean, here is an example.

The borders, especially eyelet (like on this cake) were really nice, too. I am glad I learned how to use fondant but I really don't see myself using it very often. It doesn't taste like anything, it's a weird texture, and you can't really eat the pieces you mixed gum paste into.

Anyway, here is my final, final, final cake!

I stupidly forgot to mix gum paste into the fondant for the bow so it wasn't as bouncy looking as it could have been.

I had very little plan of how I was going to decorate this cake, I just knew I wanted to get rid of the neon coloured fondant from class 2. I was the only person in class who didn't have decorations pre-made so most of the time, it was my classmates staring at me decorate this, so I tried to work quickly.

All in all, I enjoyed all the Wilton classes but they are a lot of work! There is very little getting out of putting in the time and money. Being busy with other stuff, it was a bit difficult to manage at times. I am excited to put my skills to use in the future and really proud of the cakes I've made.

If anyone has any questions about the classes even if you're reading this in the future (wooo), feel free to ask away, I'd be happy to answer what I can. 

Also, for anyone currently taking the classes, I hope your instructor told you about this somewhat secret Wilton student area! Didn't find out about it until class 2 and it's been a huge help!

Sew Excited

This weekend I had the pleasure of visiting heaven on Earth. Hardly hyperbole.

I've been trying to find where the local quilt shops are in this area since they're the only place to buy premium fabric. I knew Ann Arbor had the Ann Arbor Sewing Center but I hadn't yet checked it out until yesterday.

As soon as I walked in, I knew I was in for a treat. The place is huge with over 6500 fabrics to choose from and every possible item you could want. Seriously, everything I've heard of, use, and/or want was there. Insul-bright batting, Mary Ellen's Best Press, Bernina accessories (they're a Bernina dealer, squee!), Amy Butler patterns, Moda jelly rolls, Master Piece thread, King Tut thread, Frixion pens, etc etc etc. Oh, and sewing classes. I'll be taking some of those next year for sure.

I walked around for over an hour, staring at everything. The whole time in there, all I could think was, "Oh my god oh my god...they have EVERYTHING." Prices were average which I'm more than happy with.

This is my haul! Sorry it's on its side, my Internet is being awful right now and it'll take me about 15 minutes to re-upload a rotated one. As you can see, I picked up several of the items I mentioned above, plus some FQs (6/$9.99!), Bernina bobbins, freezer paper, and some handy dandy clips. They gave me a free thread clipper thing as I was a new customer. Yay! I came home and spread it all out. Anthony has pointed out that when I get excited about my craft stuff, I start singing to my purchases. I'm such a geek.

This is my Sew Stitchy quilt using the 3 Dudes jelly roll quilt pattern tutorial that the Missouri Star Quilt Company did. A lucky person who shall remain nameless will be getting one of these for Christmas, but in different fabric. No clue when I'll have time to do it but it's gotta get done! Anyway, I love Aneela Hoey's Sew Stitchy for Moda fabric so much that I couldn't decide which one I'd use for the back, so I ended up buying a layer cake and I guess it's going to be a reversible quilt when I'm done. With fabric this cute, how could you ever pick just one?

Wilton Gum Paste & Fondant Classes 1 and 2

Three weeks ago I started the gum paste and fondant course. While fondant is not something I see myself working with very much, I did still want to learn a bit about it. Also, I got the student kit for $14 with a coupon at JoAnn. Considering it retails for $50 in Canada, I was pretty stoked.

Class one agenda:

• Gum Paste and Fondant 101
• Bow Loops
• Mum Base, Rose Base
• Carnation Base
• Assembling a Bow

I don't have photos of the bases, but here is how my bow turned out:

I think this is really pretty and I do think I'd use this on a cake. This is bright orange as I was trying to use up the package of fondant I bought for the one fondant class in course 2 (still annoyed as that was kind of a waste of money).

Course 2 agenda:

• Basic Principles of Floral Cake Design
• Calla Lily
• Rosebud and Rose
• Carnation
• Calyxes and Leaves
• Assembling the Calla Lily

My carnation didn't turn out great as I missed the instruction about how to do the top, but I think the rose and the calla lily are really cute, especially the calla lily.

Again with the bright orange, haha. You're supposed to have a small piece of spaghetti stuck into the bottom of the flowers so you can stick them in your cake, but mine had broken off.

Unfortunately I'll be missing the 3rd class as it was moved to Friday to accommodate our instructor's desire to go Black Friday shopping on Thursday night. Fortunately I looked in the book and I'm not interested in learning how to cover a cake base. Seems like an even bigger waste of money to me, though it does look decorative.

Sorry for the lack of detail...I've had no time to sit down and write out more substantial entries. I only have 3 more weeks of sewing and one more cake decorating class until I have more free time. It's a good thing too, I'm starting to getting a little fatigued of all this running around.

100th Post

For my 100th post on this blog, here are some projects I've completed or am working on.

 This is the quilt from my learn to quilt class. Since I didn't pre-wash the fabrics, the fabric is now a little crinkly. I like this look and doubt I will prewash in the future unless size is important. I'm very happy with my quilt, despite a few mistakes. Some of the binding is coming off after the wash too and I still need to attach a label. 

This is an iPad mini cover I made myself. Coincidentally, I had exactly enough fabric left over from the quilt I'm working on. There's a few little mistakes and I'm still not great at attaching zippers, but I am getting better. Overall, I'm really happy about this. It even has an iPhone-sized pocket inside. The inside is lined with quilters' flannel in a gingham fabric to match the checkerboard look.

 These are some zippered bags I made one weekend I was home and bored. The green wristlet and the big striped bag are quilted with batting in between. These were all fun and easy to make.

This is one of the quilts I'm working on. It's a jelly roll race quilt. I still need to attach the borders and finish it up. Sigh...too many projects, not enough time. I used a jelly roll (bali pop) of batiks called Rum Raisin by Hoffman Fabrics. I'm not a batik fan but these colours are beautiful in person. This is a little more "grown up" than the other two quilts I'll have made for myself.

Wilton Flowers and Cake Design Classes 2-4

My original plan was to write an entry for each lesson of the Wilton classes but I'm obviously falling behind due to all my other obligations, so I'm going to condense this into one entry.

Lesson 2:

On the agenda:

• Making Royal Icing
• Making a Parchment Bag (we do the cling wrap method instead)
• Flower Nail
• Rose Base (review from course 1)
• Apple Blossom, Primrose
• Rosebud

This was the first time I ever made royal icing and I wasn't sure what type of consistency to make it, and I ended up making it too thick/stiff. Since I had pre-bagged all my icing, I had no way of watering it down. Fortunately the instructor had a plastic juice cup, but then I ended up making the icing too watered down. I was getting so frustrated with it that I wanted to just leave and try again later, but I forced myself to stick it out.

Here's what the flowers are supposed to look like:

Apple blossom, primrose, rosebud

I promptly threw out all my pathetic attempts. No photos. I was frustrated about this class all week afterwards.

Lesson 3:

• Daffodil
• Violet
• Using the Lily Nail, Lily
• Making Stems
• Guidelines for Flower Arrangements
• Wilton Rose

I was looking forward to learning the Wilton rose and I ended up being pretty good at it! I had the instructor check my icing consistency beforehand and this time, I didn't make the mistake of pre-bagging things in case the consistency was off.

Here's what the flowers are supposed to look like:

That lily doesn't look like how we learned, the petals are different.

Here's some of my flowers:

Lesson 4:

• Floral Cake Design
• Reverse Shell
• Basketweave
• Finishing our cake

The reverse shell is kind of weird. I like it and will probably use it, but I'd want to practice it more first. Our instructor explained it as making question marks and backwards question marks.

As you'll see below, I put basketweave on my cake and it turned out pretty good. That's what everyone who saw my cake commented on. Back in April, I had bought a cake with basketweave on it and was mesmerized at how difficult it looked. Turns out, it's not hard at all. I recommend learning it even for casual cake decorators. It makes your cake look so professional and it covers up crappy icing jobs on the side (hello, my cake!).

So here was my final cake!

Ta da! I took the inspiration from the previous Wilton Method course 2. From what I can tell from looking at blogs when the old classes were still current, everyone who took course 2 made a cake similar to this. I thought it was so pretty and reminiscent of springtime, so it was a nice contrast to the terrible weather outside.

FYI the right side of the cake has wonky-looking basketweave because I had an odd number of vertical weaves. In order to "fix" that at the end, you pipe weaves diagonally into the adjacent empty spaces and then dub it "the back of the cake." :-)

Yes, I'm aware daffodils aren't pink but I made them in class when I only had pink!