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! 

Technique Tuesday: Multi-Layer Flowers

We had a wonderful, little class last Tuesday making lovely little multiple layer felted flowers.  Every single one turned out just gorgeous and the girls went home inspired to make more!  In today's Technique Tuesday class we're going to be embedding stones into our wet felting - I'll share photos next week!

Fashion through the 20th Century

Part of our Fashion Week last month was a display of our collection of garments from the 20th Century.  It was so much fun to get the collection out and make our choices (*
0960***99995*9999999999999999999*-rtttttttttttttttttttt5899999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999----
32000000000000020033333333333333333333333333333333)  That lovely collection of typing was a little gift from Button to you.  ;-)

Anyway, our fashion collection.  Here is what we put on display:

A lovely 1930's gown that I actually got from our wonderful knitting/crochet instructor, Dana Petersen. 

A gorgeous 1940's gown that I've had the privilege of being able to wear to a few formal swing dancing events. 

This darling dress was our mother's in the 1960's.  Can't you just see her in it with her bouffant?

This one most of our T3 regulars should be familiar with.  This was my Great-Grandmother Lorraine's.  She wore this down in the Long Beach area during the 1950's.  

An awesome 60s/70s bathing suit.

Another great 1930's dress.

And an awesome 1970s i.magnin polyester dress.  

Button is getting so big!

Get the cursor.  Get the cursor.  Get the cursor.

I love this keyboard.

One of these things is not like the others.

Button hiding!

Ummm....  Could you help me out please?  She proceeded to take a nap in there until she finally got herself out about an hour later.

She really likes my purse.

Just one of the many things piled on my desk.

So lady-like.