Girls' apron ~ a fun sewing project

This is an apron I recently finished for Julia, who just turned 5. Unfortunately, it turned out quite a bit too big, but she is wearing it anyway. (The pattern said it should fit ages 4-8 or so.) It should fit her perfectly in a year or two!

A neat thing about this apron is that all of the fabric except the neck/shoulder strap is from my mother's stash. The flower print is from a dress I had as a teen, the tiny pink check (waistband/ties) is from a shirt I had as a toddler, and I think the pink stripe was something she made a dress from for herself. That's another thing that drew me to this pattern -- one can use a mix of fabrics. I like the way this apron turned out with the different fabrics.

Here's the pattern source: Girls' Apron. Even though it turned out too large for petite Julia, I love the pattern and it was extremely easy to make. I will probably be making more of these!

An unexpected visitor

This fellow made his way through our back woods while we were finishing up lunch on Mother's Day. Mr. T was able to get a couple of photos from our balcony. This is the best picture he got.

Early spring in the wildflower garden

Here are some pictures I took last week. Bloodroot is the first flower we see in the wildflower garden. My late father-in-law brought the bloodroot plants to Carrie many years ago for her wildflower garden. Every year it seems to spread a little and to come up in a slightly different spot. These are near the brick path:


And here is a closeup of more:

My Wildflowers of North America book tells me that the bloodroot has round chestnut-brown seeds that fall to the ground in early summer and thus extend the bloodroot's territory.

These have jumped out of the wildflower garden and are nestled by the roots of a nearby tree.

Not wildflowers, no. Daffodils, but we planted these here many years ago and they don't usually do much. This is the best these daffodils have ever done here.

What a pretty spot of encouraging color!

Microwave Lemon Curd

This past Friday I had been asked to bring a layer cake to a ladies' event at church. And I also was recently the recipient of a bag of Meyer lemons. I decided I would make lemon curd from the lemons, which really needed to be used, and use it between the cake layers.

I had never made lemon curd before, but did have a recipe. When I looked at the recipe, though, I noticed that it called for using a double boiler. I don't own one and wasn't in the right frame of mind to try and improvise one while preparing an unfamiliar recipe. Then I remembered that sometimes the microwave works well for recipes which would ordinarily require the use of a double boiler -- puddings and such. So I looked on line for a microwave lemon curd recipe.

And found this one: Microwave Lemon Curd

(Photo from AllRecipes)

It came out really well. I ended up making 2 batches because I had six lemons. My first batch came out just a little bit too thin, and no amount of microwaving would thicken it after that. But it was fine after a night in the fridge. My second batch only cooked about 5 minutes. When the time was up, I didn't stir it right away. I found out by accident that it would stay thicker that way. It was excellent.

(Jar of finished lemon curd and a Meyer lemon.)

For the cake, I made a white cake mix using whole eggs and mixed some lemon curd into the batter -- perhaps a half cup or 2/3 cup. I assembled the cake with lemon curd between the layers and a lemon frosting on the top and sides of the cake. It was very good!

Recent simple craft projects

I have several other crafts I want to post about -- the super hero capes and the girl's apron -- but those need to wait until I can take the time to post the links for making them. Too busy for that today, but here are some of the crafts I've recently completed.

Two crocheted dishcloths -- love that seed stitch pattern. These were for my friend J. who loves green, to go along with her tea towels. I especially like the striped one.

A flannel receiving blanket for a baby shower. The unborn baby was named Wiggly Baby by his older brother. He has now been born and is named David.

A bluebird day-of-the week towel for myself. This is linen dishtowel fabric from my mother's stash, and she loved bluebirds, so this is in memory of her.
And a closer look at the bluebird motif:

A felt bunny. Had hoped to get this done for Easter decorating, but it didn't happen. Original pattern called for a striped or floral fabric. I wanted to try using brown felt to make it look chocolate. Like the idea of using vintage spools for "wheels". I love it when I can make a craft without having to buy any materials, as was the case with this bunny!

A chef's hat for Josiah, who turned 3. Guess he liked it; he put it on when he opened it and wore it the entire rest of the day!

Think that's it for now. More to share later: flowers, recipes, and more crafts...

Fun, fabulous felt food!

Over the past year or so I have had so much fun making play food for my grandkids. Most of it has been felt food, but some has been crocheted (the chocolate donuts) and some has been made from other fabric (the bow tie pasta). I have some great plans to make them more felt food for Christmas. Meanwhile, here is some of what I've been up to in recent months:

Cinnamon rolls

Christmas cookies

Valentine cookies

Chocolate donuts

Bow tie pasta

Bacon & eggs

I also made a felt coffee set -- 2 cups of takeout coffee and some mini donuts, chocolate, and pink frosted. I didn't get photos of these, but as you scroll down they can be seen in the photos of the kids with the food.

Same with the Cheez-It® crackers -- we were able to find the perfect size Cheez-It boxes to present these in. When you look at the pics below you will see the crackers on a yellow tray over toward the righthand side of the photo.

My daughter out west sent me some wonderful pictures of her kiddos enjoying the felt food.

Darrin holds a chocolate mini donut and a Valentine cookie in one hand and a spoonful of pasta in the other. Looks like he plans to follow that up with bacon & eggs.

Emily has a balanced meal in front of her but it appears she will eat dessert first!

Darrin snacks on pasta bows while Emily digs into a cinnamon roll. In this photo you can see the coffee set quite well -- coffee cups in front of each child, while two of the mini donuts may be seen on the red tray near Emily.

Enjoying their coffee! I made these because their uncle owns a coffee shop, but the kids refer to these cups mostly as hot chocolate.

Making felt food really is somewhat addictive. I will be sorry when the kids get old enough to outgrow it!

* Note: If anyone is interested in the links for the specific food crafting tutorials, just say so in a comment and I will share the links. I didn't have time today to hunt up all the links and post them here, but I am willing to share if some are interested in having the links.*

A fun tea towel project

Lots to do today, but wanted to quickly stop in and share these photos of a fun embroidery/sewing project I did recently. This cute little vintage camper design is from the Camp Out! collection of transfers by Sublime Stitching. I stitched them up on flour sack towels for my friend J.'s birthday. She and her hubby actually own a vintage travel trailer, so it seemed like the perfect design for her. I trimmed the towels with a scalloped fabric border, my first try at such a technique, so they sure aren't perfect, but did turn out cute. I did the designs in two different color combinations, to coordinate with the fabrics I chose for the scalloped trim. Love the awning and the cute string of decorative lights on the camper!

Here is red:

With its border:

And blue:

With its border:

These were so much fun to make. Hope to do more for Christmas gifts.