@#$%& Pleats

Deep breath.  I need to find a happy place...

I finally have a flower in bloom!  Yay, I feel slightly better now.   I'll get back to the pleat situation when I think my blood pressure can handle it.  They've really put me off sewing for a while.  Unfortunately I have the mentality of my 5 year old...I just want to be able to do something, the first time, perfectly!!   So I had to do something else, completely different.

Felt needle books!  Pretty darn cute if you ask me!  Besides some slight anger issues towards this project, it pretty much went swimmingly!  I was able to free-hand cut out felt flowers and arrange them as pleased me and then I got to try out my new embroidery hand book for the stems.  It's always nice when you can just be creative and not have to worry that you're going to screw up an entire project (like with pleats)  because if you cut out a small flower and it's hideous, you can just toss that scrap and start over.  No biggie.  Just what I needed to kind of refresh myself.

I made a length of cording to wrap around the button to close the book.

Perfect for me and my Oldest who has a bad habit of putting her needles back in her fabric rather precariously!  With this sweet setup I am perfectly capable of sewing outside while the babies play and I can just stab whatever pointy objects I have right there!  No stepping on misplaced needles anymore...I hope.

Happy Cinco de Mayo.  Tres leches cake courtesy of Alton Brown "I'm Just Here For More Food".  I added the raspberries as my own special touch.  Very yummy!  I personally think the raspberries made the cake.  It is almost overpoweringly sweet and so the tart berries simmered the sweetness down. Very soggy too!  So, if soggy cake isn't your cup of tea, don't make it.  My dad on the other hand would LOVE it.  He'll take a slice of cake, put it in a glass and cover it with milk and then eat it with a spoon...Graham Crackers too!