Flowery Cakes

I spent a good part of last week in my kitchen creating springtime cakes for 4 different occasions, three birthdays and a baby shower.

For the chocolate iced cupcakes, some of my inspiration came from my very own yard where daffodils are abundant and in full bloom. I also wanted to incorporate the color orange and made orange daisies which were a nice compliment to the yellow daffodils.

The teapot cupcakes were made for Steph's She's CrafTEA! party, and the pink daisy cupcakes were ordered for a little girl's birthday tea party.The recipient of the baby shower cake loves chocolate and raspberry so I made a chocolate cake layered with raspberries and chocolate buttercream and iced in a raspberry buttercream.

Patchwork Dish Towels

Here's another fun project from Sew Mama Sew - patchwork towels. I enjoyed making these for my friend's new kitchen.

I encountered one problem while sewing them, however. I used plain flour sack towels and the unevenness of the towels made it difficult to line up the patchwork strip evenly with the ends of the towels. In the future I will use a terrycloth towel instead.

Sewing for Baby

Need a baby gift idea? Check out these simple patterns for a baby blanket and burp cloths. The baby blanket tutorial came from The Purl Bee blog. I used cotton on one side and flannel on the other. I also made it a little bigger, 42 inches square instead of what they recommend, 32 inches square.

I also found a tutorial for these burp cloths on Sew Mama Sew. The burp cloth pattern that I've used in the past has ribbon sewn on the ends but I thought these were extra pretty with a strip of fabric sewn down the center. And look they complement the blanket!

One note on the burp cloths: I bought the Gerber organic cotton diapers and they were awful to work with. They got caught on the needle and snagged. I would recommend using the regular cotton ones instead.