Friday, June 19, 2009

East End Cake Decoraing Club - June Meeting Competition

The Club held it's annual Cake Decorating Contest at the June meeting. There were four entries from members of the group. The judges declared Lyne Coderre’s cake to a category of its own, and it won “Best of Show 1st Place: Diane Kingston. Diane's entry includes a real cake and cake slice. The "china" teacup and saucer, the plate, the fork and spoon, the Pansy posy, the napkin ring, the napkin and the try cloth are made from gumpaste.
Second place went to Ruth Alves whose Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" were very lifelike.
Shirley Peters won third place. She fashioned an Artist's Box and Equipment. The oil paint sure looks real! Thanks everyone for your participation. And a big thanks to our two judges, Cynthia Lewis and June from Katie's Cakes. It was decided to hold the 2009/2010 year cake competition in the October.
The next meeting will be September 20th. Elections will be held at that meeting, and your membership of $25 will be due. Also at September's meeting will be demos on how to make gumpaste, cold porcelain and Mexican Paste and Royal Icing

Monday, June 15, 2009

CQInternational FFT#7 Gerry's block

Gerry's block was a delight to work on. I enjoyed so much the work that went into it before it reached me. Gerry's lovely green fabrics and the silkie in the middle, and then Nicki Lee and Mary's pretty additions. It's now time to post it on to Faye in Australia. This is how it looks now.
I added the tatting seam at the top (I wish I could say that I tatted the tatting, but I can't). I also added the rosebud vine.
A row of chevron and lazy daisy.
Bullion daisies in a shiny variegated thread and some beaded flowers. A row of silk ribbon french knot blossoms.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Another "sweet" day

Do you remember the post last week with all those little faces? Well, here is the resulting cake, finished. My friend Verdie and I worked all day on these five and three others. The occasion is a meeting at a local church of "Small Group Leaders". The cakes are an 8" carrot cake heart, two 6" vanilla and two 6" lemon. All are filled - cream cheese buttercream, buttercream and lemon curd with buttercream and fondant covered. The lettering and logo are in colourflow. The cakes were varying shades of blue on a 16" x 20" fondant covered board. We just delivered this cake and some of the meeting attendees were there already. They had such a lot of fun picking themselves and others out of the faces. We hadn't actually modelled them after any of them, but certainly there were some similarities!
This looked so pretty! An 8" "black fruit cake" smothered in gum paste flowers.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Pattern search

One of the posts in Plays with Needles blog mentioned a knitting web site called "Knitty", which reminded me that I have been looking for a knitting pattern for ages, and maybe through my blog would be a good place to ask if anyone still has it. The picture below is my daughter in about 1976 graduating from nursery school in the dress in question. It's knitted with a simple crochet picot edging and looked so cute with tights.

Monday, June 1, 2009

FFT#7 - Nicki Lee's block

Just finished and mailed Niki's block to Faye in Australia. I really like working on sea-themed blocks and Nicki's was set up so nicely with lovely fabrics and pretty stitching already completed by Mary. Here are some pictures.

These shells shine like mother of pearl, the photo doesn't do them justice.Lots of seaweed and a little shoal of tiny fishes to the right.

This braid has a lovely shimmer which I was able to match to some Sassa Lynne thread and seed beads. Below that is my representation of an octopus

I wanted a stitch that would disappear into the background because I didn't want it to interfere with the patch with the shells. The stitch I used is the up and down blanket stitch and is one of my favourites and every time I use it I have to look at the instructions. But it's an interesting stitch because the second leg appears is the most impossible way. Just try it out and you will see what I mean.

Now I am block-free until I receive Gerry's block from Mary. I should probably do some housework!