new sewing machine

This was my birthday gift from Mr E: a brand new Pfaff Quilt Expression 4.0

I've started playing with her, and had a lesson at the dealer. Ironically it was back at the dealer on the weekend [my actual birthday] having a new bobbin winding unit installed, as mine was faulty. The combination of sick children, birthday cakes to bake, and a tired me has meant I haven't actually SEWN anything with it yet. And of course I'm itching to.

What do I think of it? In a word, WOW. I've never owned a top end machine before and it can do a lot I didn't think was possible with a sewing machine. I can see this Pfaff and I are going to have a long, productive relationship. I feel I need to give this machine a name, but what? All suggestions greatly appreciated in the comments.

cake decorating

For my birthday I received a cake decorating set - by that I mean a set of icing tips, 18 of them. So this afternoon I decided to try my hand at making cupcakes of various beautiful swirls, roses, etc.

I have not posted a picture here because I need to practise. A lot. And I've run out of icing. My girls thought the attempt at roses were "Great, Mummy. Can I eat that one now?" So the best ones got eaten before there was time to photograph. But I didn't want to take any photos. They looked awful. And no, I'm not being modest. They were truly bad.

I hate it when I have to practise new skills. I get so frustrated. A personality flaw I know, that results in me rarely trying new things, or becoming paralysed by my perfectionism. Something this blog was supposed to cure me of. The fact I haven't posted much at all in 2010 shows I'm not sewing/baking/quilting etc. very much due to this personality flaw. Hmmm.

I promise that next time I'm brave enough to practise my icing I'll post a picture...

PINK CUPCAKES

Last week I thought it was a good idea to make a rainbow cake with Miss 2. She will turn 3 on Sunday and so we are taking cupcakes to playgroup for her to celebrate with her friends. Now that she knows cake can be colours other than plain or chocolate, she requested pink cupcakes with pink icing!!

What have I done?????

RAINBOW CAKE

Last week at playgroup we had "Rainbow Day", where the children all wore their favourite colour, we made a rainbow craft, and ate coloured food. I thought I'd make a marble cake, then decided to go one better and make a rainbow cake. I've never made a marble cake before, let alone a rainbow, but I'm all for experimenting!

It was a great opportunity to teach Miss 2 about primary and secondary colours: she helped mix the food colouring into the cake batter. It was so exciting for her, and so much fun for me to watch her discover the colours as they mixed.

I made a gluten free wacky cake batter, then divided it into six bowls, approximately 1/2 cup in each. We just added six or so drops of food colouring into each bowl. Then poured each colour in, one on top of the other starting with red, in rainbow order. Each successive colour displaces the one before.

We iced the cake with white butter cream icing to represent a cloud.

I actually made two cakes: one for home and one for playgroup. Miss 7 thought the cake was the tastiest one I'd ever made [it's the same recipe I've been using for cakes for a couple of years now]. Miss 5 only ate the cake, and left her icing on her plate as she didn't like it [usually she is like all children and only eats the icing]. It just goes to show you that food colouring makes all the difference to children!!