Itsumo Mawaru

Dyed Skeins, originally uploaded by mizuhana.

We went down to the Fiber Farm to learn how to dye wool! It was tons of fun and I have lots of awesome pictures on Flickr of cute lambs and the entire process of dyeing.

I chose to create two skeins of sock weight using orange and yellow dye. I’m planning on making socks with them. I also dyed one sock skein in rainbow pattern (red yellow and green/blue) in the crockpot, and it turned out surprisingly well, tons of variations of colors throughout it. I was thinking of making socks with it, but I am now thinking of making a purse or bag. Finally I dyed two skeins of worsted weight using grey-blue-aqua and green.

I learned so much about dyeing wool as well as spinning and caring for little creatures. It was a very fun adventure!

Today is my 23rd birthday and i’m enjoying it in style!

Sitting here in Starbucks, waiting to pick Tom up then heading home to hang out before going to The Works for supper! Could life get any better?

Spice Cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, originally uploaded by mizuhana.

Another cupcake recipe from the Crazy About Cupcakes book (http://www.amazon.ca/Crazy-About-Cupcakes-Krystina-Castella/dp/1402719949). I used the remainder of the cream cheese frosting to frost these as I didn’t want to tarnish their taste with the icky buttercream.

These cupcakes use molasses and a surprisingly small amount of spice, but they have the richness and hearty feel of gingerbread, only deeper and stronger. I am enjoying them very much. A keeper recipe for sure, although I think it would be too strong for a full cake.

Good Yellow Rose, originally uploaded by mizuhana.

Check it out, it’s a buttercream rose! And not a bad looking one at that, considering my learning consists of watching YouTube videos!

I used some of the other tips such as the leaf tip and star tip to see what they produced.

The one thing I don’t like is the taste of the premade buttercream I got from Bulk Barn, it’s exactly the stuff they use on commercial cheap cakes which is why I detest frosting. But I know from tasting Jane’s Swiss Meringue Buttercream that it IS possible to make a tasty buttercream, so I’ll start from scratch next time.

I’ll also be using Royal Icing in subsequent cake experiments to see how those flowers hold up over time.

I have developed a desire to do some cake decorating. The first thing I will do is practice icing and piping. Let’s hope this works out!