A cake for my Mum

On Wednesday it was my Mum's birthday, so a cake was needed  :)

As she has a very sweet-tooth I decided on a very sweet cake.

Toffee cake, filled with strawberry jam and buttercream, then slathered in buttercream too.

Edged with chocolate fingers and held in place with a chocolate coloured ribbon.

Then a pile of chocolate coated toffee popcorn on the top.

Want a closer look at that toffee popcorn?  Thought you did  :)

Only one candle, as there was not enough room for all of them  ;)

...and with a slice and a chomp.... it was gone!

Do you remember the previous years cakes made for her?

2013   (Victoria sponge filled with strawberry jam & vanilla buttercream. Iced with buttercream & finished with praline filled chocolate flowers & sprinkled with popping candy )

2012  (Bottom layer is vanilla Victoria sponge, the top is Bero milk chocolate cake.)

(no photos of previous cakes before that  :) )

Wet Felt Picture Making

We are lucky enough in Carlisle Hobbycraft to have some wonderful visiting artisans in who teach different craft classes.  On Friday, Julie Harrison came to do a wet felting class, of course I had to go along and have a play - I had not attempted wet felting before so was interested in how to do it.

She landed carrying an enormous amount of bits and bobs.

After a brief chat about the craft, it was playtime....

This is my attempt in progress...

First of all we got a piece of voile, folded in in half and layered some un-dyed roving wool onto it.

Next some colour - this is sky.

And some grass..... (and a brew)

Then some detail, can you tell what it is yet?  (It's a tree!!)

Leaves and apples  :)

Now it was time to pull the voile over the top and sandwich it all in.

Add some soapy water and push it through the voile to soak into the wool.

After a good vigorous rub, both front and back, I opened it up to find this  :)

Now to felt it down a bit.  We wrapped it round a foam roller, then into a towel and gave it a good few rolls back and forward on the bench  (250 rolls to be precise.)

Voila !  No idea what I am going to do with it, but it was fun to make.... and it helped trim a few millimetres off my bingo wings!

Here is my Mum, Vera, making hers.

Squeezing that water through the wool.

Pretty flowers.

Julie will be running another class soon, keep checking out the Hobbycraft, Carlisle website to find out when.

Vera's bolster

Do you remember the bolster cushion I made a little while back?

Well, my Mum has been popping along to my crochet class at Hobbycraft and decided to make herself one.

Here is it  :)  Lovely isn't it?

Meanwhile I am busy making another one for my sister, in red, cream and browns.  The colour is really working out well and I am just about finished, so will show you that one soon.

Knitted toy display at Hobbycraft

The crochet display has now been taken down at Hobbycraft in Carlisle, and replaced with a toys and doll display.

I had a lot of help doing this fun display, little things can take a lot of knitting.  In fact, I think I got away with doing very little with this one (whistles innocently)

I used the decopatch tree as a display aid, and tied the knitted toys into it.

Let's start with Gaynor's knitted offering.

First we have a very cheeky snake.

Very cheeky, he checks out the young ladies as they pass his tree, he watches them furtively, ready to strike...... but he has not quite plucked up the courage to strike yet!

He has a friend, a Panda, that keeps him calm and collected.  When Snake gets out of hand, Panda whacks him with his stick of bamboo!

Then you will find Monkey, this is a greedy Monkey. He will not, under any circumstances, share his banana. He guards it with his life, only having a nibble when he thinks no one is watching.

At the base of the tree sits three beautiful dollies, lovingly dressed by my Mum, Vera.

This is Polly Dolly, she is a cute baby doll, dressed in pink and white with a band of fluff around her pretty little hat.

Her friend is Jemima, she is a trendy doll, working her 60's glam style clothing and poncho.  She likes bright colours.

Their friend is Penelope Pirate, she is dressed.... like a pirate, completed with bandana and eye-patch.

Two twin flower girls sit in the basket hanging from a branch.  They are the Tulip Twins and they like to be sitting up high, swaying in the wind.

Hiding around the back of the tree you will find Henrietta and Horatio, the lace knitted hedgehogs   These little chaps were created by a colleague from the Glasgow store on our opening day way back on September.  You can pick up a free pattern for these in Carlisle Hobbycraft.

Back up in the tree you should be able to spot Festive Fred,  he is one of the Great North Air Ambulance owls that I am knitting to raise money for the charity.  You can find him and his friends HERE, should you wish to purchase one.   Or you can purchase a pattern to make your own from Fluff and Fuzz on Etsy.

Another two GNIA Owls are locked in a bird cage as the wee naughties keep flying up into the roof space and refusing to come back down.  Their names are Hooby and Edmund.

A few more crocheted owls are adorning the remaining branches, you can read more about those HERE and also find a link to the pattern.

Needle Felted Birds

I thought I would treat my Mum, Vera, to a class at Higham Hall.

Leafing through the booklet I spotted a Needle Felted Bird class, in conjunction with Woolfest, just a day class which was perfect as Mum doesn't like to leave Dad on his own too long. (She worries)

So at 8.00am Thursday morning we set of for Higham.

The class was being run by Sue Allan from Sewsister.  

Neither of us have ever done felting of any form before, so we were total newbies.  We walked into the room to find a couple of examples, and got immediately excited.  Not sure what we were expecting, but it wasn't quite this!

We started with two pieces of hand-made felt which we cut into a "segment" shape, sewed it around, (leaving a gap) then stuffed.

We then took lumps of "wool tops" and needle punched them into the felt in whatever pattern we chose.  I picked a load of wool tops in a pinky purple colour-way, and punched them in in stripes, adding squares of silver organza ribbon for patches of sparkle, and a twisted strip of blue for a curly wing effect.

Mum decided she was making a cockerel, so chose reds, oranges and browns for her colour-scheme.

Once the bodies were complete, we then went on to make felt beaks, and wired legs before the final assembly.

I have named mine "Burd", the Cockerel is called "Dennis".

We had a fantastic day, the tutor was wonderful and we were both chuffed to bits with our fantasy birds.

One classmate made this magnificent creature.

And a pic of everyones birds together.  What a colourful display.

I wasn't overly happy with the eyes on Burd though, I had taken a selection of beads and sequins with me but none of them seemed to fit.  So when I got home I took off the googly eyes he had and added a button with a bead on top, he seems to like them  :)

Burd now has pride of place on top of the TV.