Crochet anyone?

I have no idea how I decided on my hobbies but I really like making something that would be useful to me in some way. My mom crocheted me the coolest blanket before I started college. It was on my twin sized bed through 4.5 years of college and I still use it on my king size bed, although it is way too small for the bed. I always wanted to crochet something of my own so I went to the library and checked out a crochet book, bought some yarn and a crochet hook from Wal-mart and got to work with some youtube videos. Gotta love youtube!

Here is my first project.
I plan for it to be a placemat in my den to protect the table from my remotes. The colors match perfectly and after I make it a little bigger, I'll be ready to flatten it and place it out for the world to see!

Sewing 101

In December 2009, before I finished graduate school, I decided that I wanted to take a sewing class. I found a perfect 8 week course at Durham Tech for $65. I did not get around to registering until a week before class was to start in January and the class was full :-(

I was a little bummed but decided to teach myself how to sew. I like to think that I can teach myself anything so I went to the library and checked out some books and started using youtube. I watched a few dozen videos and borrowed my mom's sewing machine (I bought her the sewing machine for Christmas one year, I will return it - no Indian giving lol!) and bought a beginners pattern - an apron.


It took me a few weeks to start and finish the apron because I enjoyed laying around the house the first few weeks of January but when I started, I loved it!


I bought a few more patterns to make myself some clothes (ambitious huh?) and I will hopefully buy a dress form this weekend and get started. Cross your fingers!!

Cake Decorating Class #2

I began Wilton's Cake Decorating Course 1 on February 2, 2010 at one of my new favorite stores: Micheal's. The class cost $22.50 and consists of four 2 hour classes until February 23. Class 1 we learned how to level a cake, make butter-cream frosting, stack a cake, frost a cake, color the frosting and fill decorating bags.

For class 2 we were to bring in a frosted cake, 3-4 cups of different color butter cream frosting so that we could decorate our cake. I made a yellow cake (Duncan Hines) with strawberry preserve filling. I will learn how to make a cake from scratch one day soon :-)


During class 2 we learned how to make stars, leaves, and write on the cake. There is an art to holding the decorating bags to get the best decorations. Valentine's day is this coming Friday so I decided to stencil hearts and fill with stars. I also tried my hand at vines and leaves. The hearts came out great but my leaves need some work.

Here's my first decorated cake!

I took the cake to work and it was a hit!! It didn't last 15 minutes, everybody said it was really good and they started placing orders for cake #2. This is great!