Spring Cupcakes

Here's a fun idea if you want to make spring themed cupcakes. I made these for the annual Relief Society birthday party earlier this month and these three were the only cupcakes left. I forgot to take a picture of my 'field' of cupcakes which was really cool, take my word on that!

I had inside knowledge about the colors they were using for decorations (blue and green) since I helped a little with the decorating. I wanted to do something a little different than the standard iced (boring) cupcake. I use food coloring gels for my icing, in case you were wondering.

I started with Triple Chocolate Fudge Cake from Betty Crocker for the 'dirt.'

I used my standard butter cream recipe:

BUTTER CREAM ICING

¾ cup butter
¾ cup shortening
4 2/3 cups powdered sugar
1 ½ tsp lemon juice
1 ½ tsp vanilla
1/3 cup water

In large mixer bowl, combine butter shortening and powdered sugar, beat until very creamy. Add lemon juice and vanilla; mix until well blended. Add water and mix until very light.

The filling was my Amaretto whipped cream.

I made this grass using Wilton's tip #233. Here's the technique.

I used tip #103 for the flowers. This was the first time I'd made flowers so I thought they turned out pretty good considering.

And they were a hit, of course!

Make Your Own Knitted Hat Patterns: Diamond Lace Baby Hat

My creative projects have been on hold as of late because of the recent birth of my son, so this is my first post-partem finished project! I had been looking at a few patterns in one of my pattern books and I saw a diamond pattern I thought might make a cute baby hat. The thing about patterns in books though, is that they are meant for straight needles, so the pattern on the left side and right side are different (and in more complex patterns the even numbered rows are more than just purl around and have to be reversed to be knit in the round). This pattern also started in the middle of the diamond pattern (making a triangle at the beginning of the pattern). Why would I want to do that, book?! So I had to start in the middle of their pattern to start mine. Nothing's ever easy.

Anyways, my pattern ended up as below (see chart). The pattern is based on a repeating 8 stitch pattern, so I cast on 64 sts on a size 7 circular needle (I used a sport weight baby yarn). I did a k 2, p 2 rib for the brim (about 6 rows or approx. 1 inch). I knit two rows plain before starting the pattern. After finishing with the lace pattern, I knit every row until the work measured approx. 5 inches. Then I switched to dpn and started the decreases: first decrease row was *k 6, k 2 tog* repeat around; then k one row; then *k 5, k 2 tog* repeat around; k one row; then decrease every row, continuing the pattern (*k 4, k 2 tog* repeat around, *k 3, k 2 tog* repeat around, etc), until you have 4 sts left. Pull the yarn through these stitches and gather. Weave in all ends.

A tip: double decrease is slip one, k 2 tog, pass slipped stitch over. And every even row is a knit row.

Hat shown is about 1-3 month size.

The hat turned out alright I think. Admittedly it turned out smaller than I intended and I also didn't expect it to be so feminine. Unfortunately, I only have one baby for a model, so that's my son modelling this girly hat. *le sigh*

Shirt Alterations

A friend of mine came to me a few weeks ago and asked me if I'd be willing to make some alterations to three shirts she had bought for her daughter's upcoming mission. Two of them had sheer sleeves and the other was one of those really long button up shirts that need to be six inches shorter.

Now, I've never done any alterations before but I looked at the shirts and I decided that yes, I could do it despite having zero experience. So, I accepted the challenge and did an exceptional job - if I do say so myself.


The first thing I did was the new hem since it was the easiest and I've done some hemming before on the dresses I made for the girls. I did have to figure out how to replicate the curve at the bottom of the shirt but that turned out to be not too hard at all.

And then came the sleeves. I wouldn't say I was dreading it, but I definitely wasn't looking forward to possible total failure. Thankfully I have a certain book to help me out a bit on where to begin.


I had to make a pattern that would match the existing sleeve. I took some measurements and made a sketch of what it should look like. Then I made an actual sized version on paper, which I then cut (as you can see in the picture) to add room for gathers. I added 1/4 an inch between the pieces when I laid them out on the pattern making material and added about 1/4 an inch on the top and bottom where I had the gathers. I finished the pattern by adding 5/8 of an inch sewing allowance around.

Then I made a test sleeve.

And it was perfect.

I can't tell you how good it feels to get it right the first time.

From there I cut out the real sleeves and sewed them in as a lining.Voila!

You can see the new lining below, hiding in the sleeve. And I pulled the lining out a little bit.


And there you have it. My first attempt at clothing alterations which turned out to be highly successful.

Knitting Needle Roll

I can finally post this since this was a gift for my sister and she got it yesterday.

I got the idea as I was browsing tutorials online. This is the one I followed at madebyloulabelle, though there are lots of different ones out there. They all follow the same basic concept.

Anyway, I thought this was the perfect thing to make my sister because if she's anything like me (and she is) she's got a million knitting needles sittin' around and nothing cool to put them in. Except for me, it's crochet hooks. Seriously, I've got, like, 30 or 40 of them. That's on my project list - a crochet hook roll for me!

So I saw this gorgeous fabric on Joann's website and fell in love. They have several Asian inspired prints that are lovely. However, after shipping it would have been $12 a yard or so. The cheapskate in me just couldn't do it!

Lucky for me that there are several Joann's within reasonable driving distance and one of them had this fabric on the shelf.

I had to be really careful with the dimensions here. Making a rectangle is not as easy as you would think. Me and straight lines don't get along. I have problems people!

Here's what the pockets look like on the inside (that blur on the right is my daughter flailing her hand - what can you do?):


I thought it turned out really well. Go me!

Perhaps Tammy can post a picture with actual needles in it since I had none to put in as an example....

Birthday Cupcakes

I wanted to do something a little different for my birthday this year. I didn't feel like making a big cake with lots and lots of butter-cream. We've been trying to be healthier in our house afterall.

So I went with cupcakes. I like to only make 18 (as opposed to 24) so that they have a more uniform shape and they're aren't any 'duds'. You know what I mean.

And I filled them with amaretto flavored whipped cream and put chocolate ganache over the tops.

Now, there's a million ways to make whipped cream (exactly a million, I counted ;) ). I wanted my cream to be a little heavier than the whipped cream we usually make so I used white sugar instead of confectioner's sugar.

Stacy's Amaretto Whipped Cream

1 cup Heavy Whipping Cream
2 tablespoon White Sugar
1/4 teaspoon Almond Extract

Put everything in your mixer and have at it until it's the consistency you want.

To inject them into your cupcakes just put them in a pastry bag with a round tip and poke it into the top of the cupcake.

They turned out really yummy and we put the extras in the freezer for a rainy day.

Nursing Pillow Cover

This project has been in my backlog for quite some time. I mean, I didn't NEED a new cover but I had bought all the stuff to make it several months ago because I thought it would be nice to have a new cover. I guess my reason for putting it off was because zippers are a little intimidating.

(the old cover and my first child)


Anyway, over the weekend the zipper on my nearly four year old cover gave up the ghost. And even though I'm going to be giving up nursing here in like, three weeks (seriously), I knew that having the broken zipper edges flapping in the breeze would drive me nut-so.

So, using the tutorial over at Grosgrain I made this beauty:



I think I could have made a better fabric choice - if you look at it for too long you might start seeing dinosaurs in 3D or somethin'. And I totally messed up on the whole sewing aspect, of course, but hey, that's me.

Stacy Hates Quilting

Yes, yes. It's been a long time. I was out of town for awhile. And then I was lazy. And Tammy was birthin' a baby, so I guess that's her excuse. ;)

Anyway, I finally decided to get off my duff and set out to finish a blanket I had started for Madeline long ago. You'd think that making a blanket would be easy right?

I started this thing shortly after finding out for sure that I was having a girl. And I JUST NOW finished. In case you're keeping score, my oldest daughter is almost 3 1/2. That means I've been workin' on this thing for four YEARS. My how time flies when you're not having any fun. Like, no fun at all. Seriously. Give me a dress to make any day. Please. I beg you, make the blankets stop.

I think I was just too ambitious with this one. I mean, I did embroidery.









And ruffles.











I made a lot of mistakes, too. I really hate making mistakes. They will haunt me forever. But it did pass the washing test, so there's that (i.e. it didn't fall apart when I put it in the washing machine).

Alas, digging through my fabric box the other day I found another quilt I started ages ago. I think I'll save that one for later. You know, when I'm not so jaded (HA!).