Monday, October 18, 2010

Delicious!

Triple chocolate cupcakes...

Now, I'm not the hugest chocolate cake fan but when I saw these Itsy Bitsy Spiderweb Cupcakes online I had to attempt making them. Plus, I needed something to take to book club - we were reading ghost stories... spooooky.

I got the recipe on Delish.com and did one of the modifications mentioned in the recipe. Instead of using the 1/2 cup oil, as called for, I used 1/2 cup pumpkin pie filling. OH MY GOODNESS - so good (I figured the maple syrup would be overkill).

When I tried to make the spider web cake toppers there was a major disaster, not to mention a major mess :) I put the melted chocolate in a zip-loc and cut a tiny little tip off to make a pastry bag... yeah, not so much. I couldn't get a consistent rope of chocolate to come out so I squeezed harder. Eventually chocolate just began oozing out all over the bag. I gave up on the spider webs and just squirted strings of chocolate all over my parchment paper. I put that in the fridge to harden up and when the cupcakes we done just crumbled up the crunchies all over the top. I couldn't let all that beautiful white chocolate go to waste.

So, in the end it worked out. Maybe next time I'll invest in a frosting bag - yikes!

I also got some more stitching done on All You Can Eat - it's not just a phantom mouth anymore :) It's been a long time since I've worked on Aida so it's a nice change not having to count 2 every time I lay down a stitch.

Well, I hope you all had a great weekend. Talk soon!

Monday, October 11, 2010

Nom nom nom nom...

...chomp!

Here is the weekend's progress on Prairie Schooler's All You Can Eat
.
I'm already getting tired of of stitching long interrupted lines of color :) After the big fish is finished the rest should move smoothly.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Progress on the Cigar Box

See, I told you I was working on it!

This has just been the never ending project (2 years and counting). I keep getting distracted by other new and shiny projects. But I sat down this weekend and got a good bit done - the Habana label and the crest above it. It really is slow going with all of those 1/4 stiches. Phew!

We'll see how much more I get done because I've already got the next project layed out... it was only a matter of time :) And I can validate doing it because we need it for the teardrop. I'm going to stitch the Prairie Schooler's All You Can Eat for the galley. Which means I need to get cracking so we actually have a place for it to go. We're getting to the stage where we need to start working on the design and space is limited. I'm thinking right above the roll top bread box :)

Have a great week!

Friday, October 1, 2010

Gift Giving

I know I haven't posted in a while but I've been working my butt off on a special project. A secret special project.

... but now I'm finished so I'll show off!

Last weekend we went camping with our teardrop club and, since we're not finished with our trailer yet, our fellow Tear Jerkers, Ken an Susan, lent us their extra trailer for the weekend. I wanted to do something nice for them to show how appreciative we were so I made them a tiny, cross stitched replica of their Scotty Highlander.

Here is their trailer (hi, Ken!):

And here is their mini!

They loved it and hung it outside of their trailer for all to see.

The process of making this little door hanger was fairly easy but VERY time consuming. It was also my first time using metallic thread so that was an adventure in and of itself.

First, I looked at pictures of their trailer. Then I created a cross stitch chart - well actually two. One of the left side and one of the right side. After I stitched both sides of the trailer, I back-stitched around each. To attach the two sides I simply stitched the back stitching together - similar to biscornu construction. Before completely sealing the piece, I stuffed in a little poly-fill and some dried lavender flowers from the garden. Then I stitched the piece closed.


Now that that project is finished I think I'll go back to the cigar box. Stay tuned for more stitching updates!