A Renewal of Vows

Mom and Dad renewed their vows up on a lookout point backed by the Sierra Buttes this past Saturday.  It was a snowy, rocky adventure getting to and from the point but the point itself was absolutely gorgeous and there couldn't be a more perfect place to celebrate their life together.  I don't yet have the photos from the photographer but I thought I would share a few of the photos that I took.

In classic Mansfield-Family tradition mom's dress is handmade only mom took it a step further and even made the fabric!  It's almost entirely nuno felted with silk/cotton voile and white merino wool.  Family heirloom laces and trims were felted right in.

Jill made mom's jewelry, Lisa kept us all very well fed and Ben played the guitar and Daniel, in the High Hand Flower Market, did the flowers. It was a lovely day with lovely people - I can't wait to share the professional photos with you!

Yay for walls!

Dad and his crew came in last week and whipped out some more walls for our little shop.  They will hopefully help in keeping the heat in the shop this winter plus they gave us SO much more room to hang our fiber art pieces.  A BIG thank you to Scott of High Hand for doing this for us.  We're one step closer to having a ceiling and being climate controlled - woo hoo!  :-)

Introducing Marilou Moschetti

We are thrilled to announce that Marilou Moschetti will be joining us at the Thimble to teach a 3-day workshop November 4-6.  She will be teaching a technique that we have never had taught at the Thimble - Nuno Felting with Prefelted Batts!  Her work is gorgeous and we can't wait to soak up some of her 16 years of experience with felting and training from some of the innovators of Nuno Felting!

Class Details:

Nuno Felting a Vest or Fabric with Marilou Moschetti - Friday, November 4 6:30pm-9:00pm, Saturday & Sunday, November 5 & 6 9:00-5:00.

A materials list will be available upon registration.

Pre-requisite: 8-10 hours nuno felting experience.

Instructor: Marilou Moschetti

Class Fee: $250

Embedding Stones

Last Tuesday was our Technique class for embedding stone during wet felting.  One of my students makes glass beads and she brought her "seconds" (I thought they we GORGEOUS!) and she imbedded those instead of the boring half-marble-fish-tank-marbles we were using.

Another student embedded these - don't they look like a kind of under-the-sea fried egg?  I LOVE them!

And these are the two that I played with during class.  

So much fun!  Hope you can join us for the next Technique Tuesday class!  We will be working with Silk Hankies this coming Tuesday.

The Cake.

I posted a picture of the cake that I made for my birthday last Thursday on Facebook and I had so many requests for the recipe that I figured I'd share it here.  Mom and Lisa gave me the day off from work so I got to stay home and cook and bake a birthday feast for a few of my friends - which was EXACTLY what I wanted to do!  I'm in heaven in the kitchen and I LOVE to feed people so it was an absolutely lovely day.  So, here's the cake:

The cake is a super yummy gluten-free, chocolate cake.  And I mean the kind of yummy that if I didn't tell you it was gluten-free you probably wouldn't know.  The recipe for the cake is from Silvana Nardone's cookbook, "Cooking for Isaiah".  My husband has health issues that have completely changed the way we eat and we're almost completely a wheat-free, soy-free, cow's milk-free household now and Silvana's cookbook has CHANGED OUR LIVES!  If you eat wheat and diary-free this is the cookbook you want for normal, wonderful tasting food that you can actually eat!  Okay, back to the cake - it's a two layer cake with a layer of chocolate frosting in the middle (also from Silvana's cookbook), but you could just as easily put the white frosting in between the layers.  And, here is the frosting recipe:

Whipped Cream, Mascarpone Frosting:

1 half-pint of whipping cream

1 8oz container of mascarpone

Powdered sugar

Vanilla extract

I poured the whipping cream and mascarpone into the bowl of my stand mixer and whipped at medium speed until it started to thicken.  Then, with the mixer at a lower speed, I added the vanilla (about 1 tsp) and powdered sugar (about 1-1/2 cups) until I was happy with the taste.  I continued to whip until it was a frosting consistence (it didn't take very long).

Frost the cake, add strawberries and enjoy!!

Summer Preserving.

Lisa, Hannah and I had SO much fun last weekend canning!  It was a first time for both Lisa and I so there was a lot of "Does that look right?"  "Do you think that's covered enough?"  "Does that look full enough?" If you had been a fly on the wall you would have been giggling at us.

And, of course, we didn't have all of the necessary tools so I had to jerry-rig our rings together to protect the glass from the bottom of the pan.

Lisa was very excited to use her Weck canning jars that she ordered from Heath because of the newest issue of Bon Apptite.

Lisa pickled asparagus.

I made Strawberry Jam.

Pickling Spices.

Summer Colors

Chris and I went to the farmers market on Saturday!  I love farmers markets!  I got to pet an emu, talk to a rancher about his Blue Face Leicester Sheep and their wool (I left with a few ounces of roving - I'll let you know how it goes), buy coffee and leave with a HEAP of fresh fruit (mmmmm!  Peaches!).  I even got a bouquet of flowers.  The garden on mom and dad's property is in full swing - pumpkins, basil, tomatoes, zucchini, corn.  Hannah's been canning and Lisa and I got to join in the other day on the canning experience (I'll share in another post) and I can't wait to do more.  Hope you're all enjoying the summer harvest!