Keeping warm

This winter is a rough one. Gorgeous with the many heavy snow storms covering everything in white, but bitterly cold and unpractical.
I had just finished a project using some silver grey yarn and had some leftover yarn. Legwarmers definitely seemed appropriate. Here's Margaux modelling them.

Stay warm everyone!

Pom Pom Vines for a little lady

Margaux's Fall has been busy between having her dedication, travelling to see Family and her First birthday. To celebrate those big moments in her life I decided to decorate the trees in our front yard with Pom Pom garlands. Her nursery's colors are white, light pink and silver so I followed this theme for her garlands. After searching the Internet for some inspiration I stumbled upon those cute Pom Pom Vines - slightly different than your usual pom pom garlands and more versatile.

If you want to recreate them here's my source.

Margaux's First Garden Party Cake

Cake decoration in the U.S. is a big deal it seems. Shops are filled with amazing looking cakes. For little ones, they have all sorts of shapes and colors, fulfilling the dreams and creative minds of those little ones. After checking it out though, it seemed there were two concerns with those cakes: 1) Their price sounds like you're off to marry your baby with a wedding cake price tag. 2) Their taste is not the best.
So I decided to try my hands at it and make her a two-tier cake. I must say, I was a little anxious: the idea of putting one on top of the other without everything falling apart, writing her name on it without messing up everything...I had "butterflies in my stomach".
It took two days, but I must say in the end it was a lot of fun doing it, and the best is that you can unleash your creative spirit in the best way: for your little one :)

Top tier: Hazelnut cake with an apricot glaze, covered with rolled fondant
Bottom cake: Chocolate-almond cake with buttercream icing, rolled fondant
Daisies bought from Wilton's and glued with a dot of icing (water and icing sugar mix)
Her letter was written using an "icing writer". I tried my hand at it on a cutting board first and just free-hand wrote it.

What I learned:
- I followed a friend's recommendation and chilled each tier in the fridge as I was preparing the other, this helped work with each cake as they hold better
- I used a cardboard to place the top tier on top of the bottom cake: this is a must. It enabled me to simply lift the top cake without destroying each tier, making it easy to cut pieces of each depending on guest's preference.
- Buttercream icing holds fondant better but is quite heavy
- The thinner the fondant, the better
- Writing a full name, when quite long, is hard and messy, best to stick with a pretty single letter
- The satisfaction of doing something for yourself rather than buying it is not only cost effective - most of all, it is a great feeling.

Her very own cross-stitched bibs

Handmade cross-stitched bibs I made while pregnant from Margaux. Makes every meal a little bit more special!

The Oatmeal Blanket

Just when we decided to have a baby, I started this blanket. Not knowing yet if it was going to be a boy or a girl I chose some wool I had and decided to match it with other neutral colors. A friend of mine named it "The oatmeal blanket". I loved the name so decided to keep it. With it I made a set of socks, scarf and hat for newborn.

Door guardian: la cocotte

Playtime and door guardian for my nephew Charles!

Heartfelt sweater

For a newborn, first little sweater. In white cotton, for a boy or a girl.

Three women and a cardigan

This is a family collaboration: model comes from my grandmother, I knitted the cardigan, Mum did the crochet trimming and button holes.
The result is one baby white cardigan!

Guirlandes en folie

Because homemade baby garlands to decorate their bedroom and parks make everything this much more unique...