Eggcited Sewing

Good morning, my friends. It's another morning when I'm writing fast. Mike and I are headed into town this morning for COVID boosters. We're still "Novids," and we want to keep it that way. I wonder if a day will come when we no longer need boosters. Also, I wonder if a day will come when boosters are no longer available. It seems there's always something to ponder these days. In any case, we're hoping the boosters won't make us sick, but we've kept our tomorrow free just in case.

A lot of my time was spent in the kitchen yesterday. Just for fun, I like to prepare something Irish for St. Patrick's Day. I started with this "Classic Irish Soda Bread." It was a new-to-me recipe from America's Test Kitchens.

It was easy enough to do, but it produced a dense, and not-very-tasty loaf. I've not yet found a good recipe for Irish Soda Bread. Maybe one of you has one to share. So, I won't share the recipe for the bread since I can't recommend it. But I can share the recipe for this Guinness Chocolate Cake for Two. This is a really good cake. 

It's made with Guinness stout. The bitterness of the Guinness enhances the flavor of the chocolate in the same way coffee does. The frosting is made from cream cheese and it's intended to look like the frothy top of a glass of Guinness. Mine is a "for two" version, which just means cutting all the ingredients by half and then baking it in a 6-inch spring-form pan. Here is a link to the full-sized version of the cake.

Finally, at the end of the day, I made this Irish Potato Soup. It's easy enough to make, but it takes some time since everything is boiled and simmered for quite a while, and then it's pureed. The recipe will tell you to use a counter-top blender. I just use my immersion blender, and it works fine. When it's ready to eat, it's topped with shredded cheddar, chopped green onion, and bacon. Yum.

So those were my kitchen adventures for the day. In the sewing room, I managed to salvage these blue circles without needing to recut them. I simply laid them out on a piece of Wonder Under, and then used the backing paper I pulled from the egg I made the day before to cover the top. Being careful not to get sticky stuff on my iron, I covered the whole thing with a strip of scrap batting and then ironed over it to get the fusible to adhere to the circles. Then, I recut around the fusible, and it worked fine.

And then, I could use them to make this egg. 

My friend, Anonymous, gave me the hint to count to ten when ironing the Wonder Under, and that worked great. Thank you for the suggestion, Anonymous. I'll say the fusible stayed with the fabric, but I still found it difficult to remove the paper. I used a pin to get it started, and that worked pretty well. Sometimes I could peel off larger pieces, but often I was picking little bits from the back. My other gripe about this is that the paper wants to stick to my fingers like a sticky candy wrapper. It's a minor irritant, but I still found it annoying. 

Moving on, I had time for two more eggs...this one:

And this one:

There's one more egg to make today, and then they will be ready for sewing into an Easter runner. Today's egg will be a little more fiddly to piece together. Here are the eggs I have for the runner so far.

So I needed to get the soup on the stove top. Smitty let out a yelp of delight rediscovering sunshine coming in through the glass doors. He settled on his throne for a good sunbath.

Overnight, the Easter elves came and switched out all the runners and table toppers for our Easter pleasure. This Little Bunnies table runner was originally a free pattern in the Moda Bake Shop, but the link goes nowhere now. Sorry. As with so many things, no one consulted me when the link was removed.

This little Bunny-Go-Round table topper is a free pattern from Doghouse Designs.

Just a few days ago, I saw this on Pinterest. Someone added some nine-patch blocks at the corners and some extra fabric at the sides and turned it into an adorable baby quilt.

This little Bunny Garden wall hanging in my kitchen was a pattern from Lynette Anderson.

So, we're ready for Easter here. When Easter arrives, we'll be just about a month from our departure date to Alaska. I should just start talking about things as BA (Before Alaska) and AA (After Alaska) since all my thoughts these days first begin with consideration of the proximity to our departure date. It's not too soon to start packing, my friends. If you're coming with us, you won't want to be late.

Okay, and speaking of being late, I need to get going. Those vaccines aren't going into our arms if our arms are not where they need to be at the appointed time.