Final on the Cupcakes

I promise not to bore you (or me) with any more cupcakes. Here are all the ones I've made for the class I'm teaching. Three of them I embellished with beads.  Sorry for the poor picture quality.  Dd beaded a flower for the pink topped one and I added some individual beads to highlight the confetti on top.  The dark brown and teal cupcake has some gold beads to highlight the metallic flowers, but I only did a little as decoration since I also want to be able to use it and not worry about where I put the pins!  The lavender cupcake has a pink beaded swirl which is supposed to mimic the candy that's on the fabric. 

I almost forgot to add that they have 3 fillings:  sand (2 of them have this), crushed walnut shells, and emery.  The emery one is the heaviest and the walnut shells are the lightest!

Cupcake Pincushions Prep for Class

Here's an assortment waiting to be stitched up and filled.  The pink topped one is awaiting its filling.  It just got a little makeup with some beads which I have not photographed yet.  My camera is doing seriously weird things--the view screen will show waves of color.  Wacking it a few times seems to help, but now other color is not photographing well particulary white. 

I have cut out extra pieces so that I can demonstrate as the class progresses.  I'm also making 3 to fill with 3 different fillings so I can try them out.   The lavendar one above is already done and has crushed walnut shells.  The pink one I will fill with sand and I will fill one of the brown ones with emery since it is really dark colored.  Sorry, the brown fabrics have not photographed well.  They're actually rather pretty and have some gold metallic which is attractive with the greeny color.

Up next will be some photos of the other two finished cupcakes and hopefully some progress on the knit dress a few posts back!

Back to Sewing

Does anyone else subscribe to swatch services?  I've gotten swatches from Gorgeous Fabrics, Emmaonesock, and Sawyer Brook (and, no, this isn't an ad!  No affiliation, etc.).  It is exciting to be able to see the real fabrics rather than the view on the computer screen...and to be able to touch them!  It is equally exciting to have other choices available rather than the rapidly deteriorating big box fabric/craft store.  I won't even go into what dh calls it!  But he is right--it is a scary place.

Anyway, I have been enjoying getting regular swatches via Sawyer Brook (sure beats the bills and junk you usually get in the mail).  The most recent mailing has some very appealing fabrics and I think I might finally spend some of my Christmas money!  Loved the turquoise grouping--a floral or two and this neat woven silk with a ribbed texture.  Don't know what I'd do with any of it, but it's fun to look and plan!

Now, back to cupcakes!  I have to sew more Cupcake Pincushions as samples for the class next month.

Cupcakes

The Cupcake Pincushion pattern by Cindy Taylor Oates of Taylor Made Designs won as the next project.  I guess it goes along with dd's latest cooking endeavors--cupcakes.  Hard to guess on that one, right?  Yes, she's gone wild making cupcakes of late--chocolate chip mocha with chocolate sour cream frosting, spice cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and just plain ol' chocolate cupcakes w/ fudgy frosting a couple of times.  Likes chocolate...and cupcakes!

Here's the pattern I used:

Looks almost good enough to eat, doesn't it?

Here's mine:

I think it lacks the tasty look for some reason.  sigh.  Well, I should get plenty of practice since I ought to make more for an upcoming class that I'm doing using this pattern. 

Anyway, a little info on it--I added some polyester quilt batting to the bottom to make sure the filling didn't fall out since that's where the opening is.  Maybe a little less next time.  The pattern suggests filling either with sand or crushed walnut shells--that last one was a surprise to me.  Never heard of such a thing, but they do indeed have bags of crushed walnut shells at the pet store in the bird section (thankfully!  The pattern said the reptile section--yuck.).  I used walnut shells as a filling for this one.  I'd like to fill another with sand and a third with emery, the traditional filling for the little strawberries on classic pincushions.