Carrots and Boo's

There are not many people whom I would cut my hand on a cheese grater for.  In fact, I can count on one hand the number of non-family members I would do that for.  This girl is one of them.  Sometimes I call her "boo".

I offered to make a carrot cake for her birthday.  I also decided to make it a layer cake.  Can you believe that I've never made a layer cake before?  You know, with two layers of cake and frosting in the middle?  Nope, up until this point, I'd only ever made sheet cakes or cupcakes.  "How hard can it be?", I asked myself.

The answer, is not that hard.  Except for the grating of carrots.  That part stinks.  But other than that, this cake is mad easy to make.  I used the Pioneer Woman's recipe after searching around.  This recipe looked very simple and delicious, and I love the fact that the frosting has pecans in it.  

Here it is!

For the Carrot Cake:

2 cups white sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

4 whole eggs

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

2ish cups grated carrots (I used 5 medium-sized carrots, which is a bit more than 2 cups)

For grating the carrots, I like to use the sort-of small side on the box grater.  This will allow the carrot shreds to blend in better and contribute to a homogeneous flavor of the cake, instead of having big chunks of carrots that really stick out.  And while you're grating, try not to cut your finger.  

Mix together the sugar, oil and eggs in a large mixing bowl. In another bowl whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon. Add to first mixture and combine. Then add carrots and mix well. Grease and flour your chosen pan(s), and pour your cake mixture into your pan(s).

Bake temp: 350°F

Bake time: For 2 9" round pans, I baked for about 35 minutes.  Ree from PW says that depending on the size of your pan, you can bake as little as 25 minutes and as many as 50.  The way to know when it's done is to give your pan a shimmy-shake and if it wiggles, it's not done. 

When the cakes are done baking, remove them from the oven and let cool completely.  If you're making a layer cake, once it's done, you have to level it so you have an even surface to work with.  (I've been told, however, that my Great-Grammy Sheehan never used to do this, she would just fill in the hole with frosting.)  You can decide what you want to do.  I chose to level.

The bonus of this method is that then you have a whole bunch of cake to "sample".

Then you have to make your frosting.  For a layer cake, Ree recommends doubling the recipe for frosting.  I found this to be a bit much, and in the future would probably just 1.5 it.  

Pecan Cream Cheese Frosting recipe:

1 package cream cheese (8oz) - softened to room temperature

1 stick butter - softened to room temperature

1 tsp vanilla

1 lb powdered sugar

3/4 cup chopped (really small) pecans

In your mixer, mix together the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla.  Add in the powdered sugar in two parts.  Let your mixer do all the work, and combine all the ingredients until the frosting is smooth.  Then add in your pecans.  

Then the fun part.  Line your cake plate (or whatever you're going to serve your cake on) with wax paper around the edge.  Plop your first cake layer down in the middle, and throw some frosting on there.  Using an off-set spatula, spread the frosting around to the edge.  It's okay if you go over a bit.  Encouraged, in fact.

Then put your second layer on top of that.  Continuing to use your off-set spatula, spread frosting around the top and edges of your cake.  

When you're done, slide the wax paper out from underneath your cake, and admire your work!

If you have a pretty cake plate with a cover, like I do, you can put the cover on.  Then figure out how to transport your cake in it's fancy dish.  Hmmmm.... 

A Lazy Sunday Afternoon Project

I had been wanting to make these for a while... I had, in fact, already made one, but promptly gave it away, and then didn't have any for myself.  Then life got madd busy, and I haven't had any sewing time in weeks.

Regardless, yesterday, I finally got back to some "me-time", and whipped out a few.  They came out cute, no?

What are they, you ask?  They're re-usable baggies!  I use them for my bagel every day to bring to work.  I also put cookies in them, and if I ate sandwiches, I would put those in there too.  You can also put veggies or fruit in there, really anything!  The only draw-back is that they are not air tight, so if you leave things in there for too long, they can get stale.

Baggies are a great way to live green!

Summer Fever

Last week I didn't get much quilting done... I didn't get much of anything done, for that matter. We had a bit of Indian Summer in March, up here in Portland, Maine, so everyone went a little wacky and forgot all about their responsibilities. Things like finishing quilts, making dinner, cooking in general, all just fell by the wayside.



I went for a little walk at a place called Perkins Cove. PC is well known to myself and my family, we used to go there all the time when we were little. There is a great little candy store there, which was unfortunately closed, but brings back loads of childhood memories just by walking by.


There's also this lovely walk called the Marginal Way that winds through the woods and along the ocean. Divine. As we were walking, we came along a house under construction. They were building this really cool dome as part of the house.

I hope the owners don't mind, but I took some pics to show the architect when he designs my future beach house (haha). I'll have to go back to this house and see the progress. I like the lack of equality in it, all three parts are different shapes.

Plus, it didn't hurt to have that cute guy sitting up there!

This week we're back to March-in-Maine weather, so I better get some quilting done! I'm already behind!!

Hopefully summer gets here soon... I'm ready for the beach!

Quilting is an Act of Love

I finished my second quilt. It was for my mom, and it equals love.

I used a pinwheel pattern. The blocks were made from a Moda Flora layer cake and a white paisley print. I love the yellow binding, it pops the outside really nicely. But the best part of the front, in my opinion, is the right side. I took one of my Grampy's neck-ties and stitched it to the front. I love the way it looks. Dummy me, however, never took a close-up picture of the tie. Duh. But, I machine stitched it on, adjusting the zig-zag stitch closeness so that it is very close, and looks almost hand-stitched, except much more even. It also goes through the 3 layers of the quilt, so the thread is on the back. I think it looks cool.

The back uses three different fabrics. The top corner fabric is another one that is special to my family. We are in the process of cleaning out my Grandparents' house that they have lived in for 50+ years. In the basement we found bags and bags of fabric scraps. Quilter's dream. This purpley-pinkish fabric was used for cushions on their sun-room porch. It's hideous, it reminds me of the 90's, and I love it. I was glad that I could sneak it into the quilt so we'll have the reminder forever. The cushions and wicker furniture will probably go to charity, so maybe some other family will enjoy this fabric for years to come.

Some things I have learned while working on this quilt:

1. One should always think your measurements all the way through in terms of space available at your house. You might not have enough room to spread out all your fabric.

2. I can make a quilt in 35 episodes of "24".

3. My living room is not as big as I thought it was.

4. I have so many more quilts that I want to make!!

5. As you can see from the background in this picture... I have a lot of junk!

6. I'm not ready to machine quilt just yet... I'm still tacking, but hopefully I'll get the courage to try it out on my next one!







Inspiration:
Moda Jack's Hills
Pinwheel Baby Quilt

Thanks:
Special thanks to my favorite photographer, Dermot Conlan, for taking a detour from his normal photography to snap a couple shots of the quilt! Hopefully I'll get a non-iphone camera soon and can take my own pictures!

Makin' Plans, Makin' Paper

I'm starting my third quilt this week. At this rate, I'll do one quilt a month (that's the goal, anyways). I hope all my loved ones like quilts! I haven't posted the 2nd one yet because it's for my mom - don't worry, she already knows about it, just hasn't seen it - and I won't get to give it to her until Thursday. But don't worry, it's awesome!! I can't wait to share...

In the meantime, I made my first quilt pattern this morning. I got the inspiration from this website, but they didn't have measurements, and the picture was a baby quilt, which is not what I'm making. So here's my pattern:

I'm pretty sure you can click on the image to make it bigger. This size is for a lap quilt. If you're going to use it, don't forget to add a quarter inch to each side for your seams! This quilt would be nice with fabrics with big patterns, so that you can see the whole pattern.

I also found this link, which I find to be very helpful. I has references for different quilt sizes, and how much fabric you would get/need for various sized quilts/squares. Very useful.

Alright, time to get cutting!

Wreathify My Door

I've been meaning to post these for a while. I got a wreath from my dad for Christmas, and ever since then, I've been wanting to make a wreath for my front door. I saw this idea on Pinterest that uses burlap or something to make a ruffle wreath. I thought I would use old Ikea curtains, they are sturdy enough to hold up the ruffles, but soft enough to fold nicely. My idea was that I could switch out the decorations with the seasons.

The first one I made with grey curtains. I picked out a cute little bird to pin on that one for spring.

But that one didn't work because it was the exact same color as my front door, so it just didn't accent it quite as nicely as I had hoped. So I gave it away to a well-deserving family member. I think she is enjoying it, even though right now it is still stuck somewhere in a closet, I know it will get hung eventually.

So I set out to make a different wreath for myself. Good thing I have a lot of unused curtains. This one I made with my old brown Ikea curtains, and got this mad pretty flower at some craft store.

Yes, I live in apartment #2.

The wreath itself was super easy to make - you could really use any type of fabric. The tutorial linked at the top says to use a glue-gun, but I don't own one so I just used straight pins. I did 4 rows of fabric ruffles, starting on the outside, then the inside, and then the two in the middle. It didn't even take a whole curtain panel. For the wreath "frame" I used the straw forms you can get at regular craft stores. I like using the pins with the straw forms because you can just jam the pins in there and keep going, not worrying about whether the stupid glue is dry yet.

Here are some things that I have learned about wreathing:

1. Your wreath, unless it is made of pine boughs, should be a contrasting color from your door.
2. Silk flowers come in millions of shapes and sizes and are very hard to pick between. Don't get them all, your wreath will just look sloppy.
3. A 12" straw form is plenty big for a regular apartment-sized door.
4. You can change the flowers out as you please, fake birds also look quite nice.
5. The fake birds will not chirp back at you. They may make you feel like Cinderella or Mary Poppins when you clip them to your finger, but they will not eat food out of your hand or tell you what they want for breakfast.
6. There are a million different ways to decorate and make a wreath, but just remember, you won't want to throw them away if you make a different one, so you better have lots of friends with empty doors that will accept your cast-offs if you start a wreath-making hobby.

Happy Wreathing!

SEW

My friend Adam took this picture... I think it's cool.

His family is full of photographers... check out his mom's website!

Happy Monday!