His party "theme" was Superman, and I really wanted to put a big "S" shield on the cake, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get the white icing tinted a vivid red, blue or yellow. The closest I got was cornflower blue, pepto pink and a pale yellow. So I moved on to option "B":



There's a local kitchen store who will take a photograph and print it (in edible dyes) on a thinner-than-paper sheet of edible icing. In this photo my printout of the image I made on the computer is on the left, and the icing photo is on the right. Not bad eh? It's not as creative as icing it myself, but I'm happy with how it looks, and it only cost $12.95 for the icing sheet. It took 10 minutes of waiting at the store, which makes this a great option for a last-minute event.

And here's how it turned out. The cake was cold from the fridge so the icing sheet didn't melt into it, and I did have to cut away one side to be able to put his "1" candle in, but all in all, I think his first birthday cake came out ok. I would have rather have done some really cool decoration myself, but it didn't work out.

Here he is, about to dig in...


...and enjoying his first slice. He spent a good 15 minutes licking up every drop of icing before working his way to the cake.

Here's a photo of Jakob and me. I think this was the only time I actually got to hold him the entire party- between the family who rarely sees him and the family who always sees him, he was a very "in demand" baby!

A photo of the bubbies... from left: Sean (Robyn's son), Carol (Robyn's and Amy's mom and my aunt), Jakob, my mom, Marlene (our cousin) and Oliver (also our cousin). Carol is my dad's sister, and Marlene is my grandfather's sister's daughter.

(The last 5 photos were stolen with permission from Amy's blog).

On Monday I finished the June socks. It felt good to cross something off my deadline list. I photographed them, finalized the pattern and sent it off to Robyn to include in her kits. So if you've ordered a Robyn's Nest June Sock Club kit, they're gonna be coming soon!

One project down, and on to the next. I'm designing 2 projects for the Mary Maxim 2008 contest. I hadn't realized until after I'd sent in my entry fee that they get the sole distribution and publication rights to any winning patterns. I'm not thrilled about that, but I will be sending something in anyways. The pattern DOES keep my name as designer, and it can't hurt to get my name out there.

Here's my first swatch.

Don't try and read it- that was just some test duplicate stitch to see what worked best. Also, don't try and guess what it is...you won't. Seriously.
This is the wip as of a few days ago. The yarn is Patons Shetland Chunky, in white and navy blue.

I'll leave you with one of my favorite photos lately.

Labels: my patterns, my published patterns