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Monday, December 9, 2013

Peppermint Cream Cheese Frosting


For our church Christmas party I was in charge of bringing a dessert.  I had some Andes candy cane bits that I wanted to use somehow, so I decided on mini chocolate cupcakes with a peppermint frosting.  My approach to frosting tends to be "mix some things together until it tastes good".  Sometimes this results in making WAY too much frosting in my effort to get it just right, but this time around it actually came together really well in easy measurements that I can actually remember :)

This frosting is nice because it has subtle flavours, isn't too sweet, and holds a piping shape well.  If you want a stronger peppermint flavour or a thicker frosting, just add a little extra extract and sugar! It makes enough to generously frost 24 regular sized cupcakes, 48 mini ones, a 9x13 cake, or a double layer 9" round cake (so basically, one box cake mix :)

Peppermint Cream Cheese Frosting

  • 1/2 cup butter (softened)
  • 8oz cream cheese (softened)
  • 3-4 cups icing sugar
  • 1-2 tsp peppermint extract
  • 1-2 tsp clear vanilla extract
  • 1/2 tsp salt
Whip butter, cream cheese, 3 cups icing sugar, 1 tsp peppermint, 1 tsp vanilla, and 1/2 tsp salt.  Add additional extracts to taste, and additional icing sugar to adjust consistency as needed.  

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Geometric baby quilts

This weekend I finished up the quilt tops that I made last weekend! All three are now posted in my etsy shop, as well!


Geometric star baby quilt:

 This one is just little, at 30x30".  It's a great size for a car seat, tummy time, or just snuggling.  I used the blues and oranges from the Birds and Berries line.
Star block patterns are pretty common. This one is just a bunch of full squares and half triangles.  I just drew out the plan on some graph paper, then assembled! Very easy with a charm pack!

Herringbone crib quilt:
I've seen a ton of similar quilts on pinterest over the past year, so I figured I'd try my hand at it.   I just cut some big parallelograms and assembled.  It could easily be done using half triangles, too, but this method was faster for me.  I backed it with this adorable orange and white bird fabric that I've had in my stash for at least a year.


 Black and white "plus sign" quilt:
This is another quilt that I have seen around on pinterest.  I like the clean, crisp lines of it!  I backed it with a minty blue flannel rather than my usual plain cotton, so it's extra snuggly.

 I think that I'd like to add the herringbone and plus sign quilt layouts to my custom quilt listings (once I reopen the custom quilt option after baby is born :).  They're so easy to customize just by changing the colours, and resizing wouldn't be a problem at all.  I already have some sweet colour combos and slight modifications in mind to try!

Saturday, November 9, 2013

All Them Scraps

When I get a custom quilt order I'll usually order a bit extra so that I can get another quilt out of it.  If the person wants a lot of different fabrics I'll end up with even more extra because most websites have minimum orders of 1/4-1/2 yard.  If the fabric is on sale or discontinued, you might even have to buy a yard.  But I don't really mind, because I can grow my stash and play around with some layouts!

The Timber Leaf and Scrappy Patchwork quilts that I posted the other day had quite a lot of leftover fabric.  I was able to get four more quilts out of it!  I still have some extra of a few of the prints, too, which I' can use for a future project.

All four of these quilts are currently for sale in my etsy shop!

For the arrow quilt, I ended up leaving off one row of blocks from the custom ordered one, so I had extra arrows to use.  So I whipped up a few more to make this little crib quilt:

A perk of the arrow pattern is that with an extra row of stitching on some of the blocks you can get a TON of half square triangles that you would otherwise throw away.  Instead, I put this scrappy chevron quilt together:



For the scrappy patchwork quilt I had a ton of extra little squares.  This was one of those fabric orders that I had to buy WAY more than I needed due to minimum quantities.  But it worked out, because I put together this star/nine patch:

...and this fun plus sign baby quilt!

Go check them out in my etsy shop!  I'm also still accepting custom orders for Christmas-- but not for long, so go look quick if you want to make that deadline!

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Final Countdown Quilts

I normally sew sitting on the floor  With a growing pregnant belly it has been getting really difficult! I've since had to migrate to the living room coffee table to sew. Here are a few of the latest custom orders that I've finished, and the last ones I have been able to do in my usual floor position-- and probably among the last ones I'll do before baby comes!

Get a Clue, Nancy Drew!
The gal who ordered this quilt had already purchased some of the Nancy Drew fabric by Moda.  She sent me a picture of a quilt she saw and liked, and from there I put together my own pattern for this one.
Image via Moda
What a fun fabric collection!  Here is the original picture I was sent that inspired the finished design:
And here's my very technical drawing of the proposed design:
It was fun using this fabric with a custom pattern, and the girl was thrilled with the result!

Scrappy Patchwork

This is one of the simplest quilts for me to make.  There is little cutting and no piecing!  You can really just zip it together in a few hours.  It also has a unique scrappy look to it since the squares have raw edges.
I wish that I had gotten a better closeup of this one! The fabrics the customer picked out were from several different lines, but worked super well together.  One of them was flannel instead of quilting cotton, so there was an extra texture in it.  I ended up ordering extra fabric so I have another quilt top in the works with it.  I'll take better pictures of that one :)

Timber Leaf Arrow

I've noticed this fabric line before, and I love it!  I was pretty stoked to get to make a quilt with it!

Here's the entire line:
Via Stash Fabrics
The customer had just picked out a few that she wanted.  It was super hard to find them, since the line has been out for a while.  After seeing them in person, I wish that I had used them sooner! I'd probably make more quilts with it for myself!

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Folding Chair Upgrade


Sam has been using this plain, worn out folding chair as a computer chair for three years.  Besides it being ugly, I haven't had a good excuse to replace it since it works just fine.  But I finally got around to fixing it up a bit! I can't believe that I didn't do it sooner! It was easy and cheap, and made a big difference.


First I just unscrewed the fabric pieces/plastic and cleaned the metal base.  I did a few coats of super strong black spray paint that is made to adhere well to metal.  I then wrapped/glued a cute canvas weight fabric around the old fabric pieces and reattached.  Easy!


Much better, don't you think?

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Ombre Chevron Baby Quilt

I loved making this crib size quilt!  For one thing, it was a really nice break from the monster king quilts I've had a ton of orders for.  It's such an easy pattern to do-- especially when you use rectangles instead of triangles.  The lady I made it for loved it, and sent me a picture of it in her nursery:

It's hard to tell in the pictures, but there are actually four shades of pink (the two darkest ones are a bit different).  But either way, I think that it's pretty cute!  My next "just for fun" quilt might just have to be another one of these, but with blue or grey!

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Herringbone Quilts in Two Ways

I love a good herringbone.  To me, it's like a more timeless chevron.  Here are two herringbone quilts that I've made that put a little bit of a twist on the classic herringbone.

Scrappy Herringbone
I started making this quilt to use on our bed, and as much as I loved the fabric line, I just changed my mind on keeping it.  I made it into a short twin instead, and kept some of the extra pieces to use for a second baby quilt.  Rather than being uniform thicknesses, the pieces are random.  I've since sold this quilt in my etsy shop.

Broken Herringbone
I love all of the white space on this quilt.  For one thing, I love how it looks-- but it also really cuts down on time (you don't have to worry about specific piecing placement) and money (single cut discount coupons)!

Friday, June 28, 2013

Three King Size Quilts: NEVER AGAIN.

I just finished my last king size quilt order that came through before I set my etsy shop to "vacation".    They make pretty good money-- but holy cow, I don't know that it's worth it.  They are a pain in the BUTT to topstitch.  I don't think I'll be doing a king (or queen!) custom quilt order unless I have one of the long arm monsters!



Skipping Herringbone
 This one is probably my favourite of the three.  The lady had picked out SUPER random fabrics for the front, so I wasn't sure how it would all look together, but she proved to be much more wise and daring than I!

Arrow 
 I think that the arrow one took the longest to make.  SO grateful that my mom was there that week to help me finish it!  I never would have gotten it done on time without her!
Minimalist
This one was the quickest to piece- but it was actually the hardest to topstitch.  With so much loose fabric, it's so easy for things to get bunched and pulled.


Monday, June 17, 2013

The locker beast is done!

My office had recently relocated, and they were ready to give up the old Ikea furniture and do something fun!  I took the task upon myself to do some projects to help out!  
There was a lack of storage space- particularly hidden storage- so I found these ugly lockers on KSL for a steal of a deal.  They were all rusty and dented, and there were some serious skeptics who weren't so sure that they could be turned around...
Challenged accepted!
Poppa White loaned me his wire brush drill head (is that the official name?), which really helped get all the junk off of them.

I painted the handles gold...


And the frame black! I then did an ombre yellow-blue spectrum.  I think that it turned out awesome!



Ta-da! What a difference!



These things were kind of a pain in the butt, and took for-freaking-ever, but I think I proved the skeptics wrong :)  This sucker will provide a ton of storage, and in my opinion, look pretty cool, too!



Sunday, January 27, 2013

Quilt Evolution

When I was a baby, I was given several handmade quilts.  If I remember correctly, I wore out one of them within the first few years so my mom put that one away in storage. I moved onto the next quilt, and by the time I wore it out I was old enough to refuse having that one put away too.  I kept using it for a long time.  And by "a long time", I mean that I used it up until when I got married.  At that point I put it away in storage, because I didn't want Sam knowing that crazy bit of me yet.

A few months ago I rediscovered my shabby little blanket, and pulled it out.  Sam was quite shocked and unimpressed by how lovely it looks.  He humoured me for a few weeks, then started subtly suggesting that I make myself a new quilt to snuggle with.

I don't really see what's wrong with this lovely item:
Pretty nice, eh?
So I got to work.  I used the Pow-wow pattern from Cluck Cluck Sew, who has some of my favourite patterns and tutorials.  I just added a few more blocks to make it bigger.  The fabric is by Lotta Jansdotter, who does some really amazing lines.  I had to search and search to find all the fabric I wanted, since it was an older line and the big stores had mostly run out.  I'm really happy about how it turned out!
I guess it's a step up from my old baby quilt.  This new one hasn't lost half the batting and turned transparent.  It will take a lot of washings and use to feel as nice, though :)