Catch up Time!

As always, at this time of year the weeks are flying by with the usual end of term activities..... sports days, summer fairs plus the general day to day antics of being a self employed, quilt shop and website owning Mum.  It's always a bit of a juggling act to keep all the plates spinning, but at this time of year it's even more of a struggle......thank goodness so far I've remembered to be in the right place at the right time......but oh my it is fun, and I wouldn't change it for the world!

In addition, last weekend we celebrated Mum and Dad's (Penny and Ian's) Golden Wedding Anniversary...what a milestone and my nephews 2nd Birthday.  So go and grab a cup of tea and a slice of cake, I've have got lots to share with you!

We're not a huge family, in fact, there is just my family of four, my brother's family of four and mum and dad!  We had lunch out and then returned to mum and dad's house for cake and present opening.  The sun was shining all day and we all had a fantastic time, so much so, I failed on the blog front and didn't take a single photo!  Sorry!

I did however manage some before photo's of the cakes Poppy and I made.....

For the Golden Wedding cake we used Peggy Porshen Lemon Limoncello Cake from her Boutique Baking book, but we substituted the buttercream for a swiss meringue butter cream, flavoured with lemoncurd.   We also added a drizzle of crushed raspberries from Mum and Dad's garden between the layers.  It was decorated with lavender, herbs and berries from the garden and to add a golden touch a sparkly 50 and a spritz of gold lustre.

Poppy was in charge of my nephews cake, a delicious chocolate cake (and cupcakes, which we forgot to photograph!)  She used our 'go to' cupcake recipe from The Hummingbird Bakery.  These were also topped with the swiss meringue butter cream that we flavoured with vanilla and as you can see she went for sprinkle, sprinkles and more sprinkles!

For a little present, I made another Heart Mini Quilt.... you can find the 'a little happy tutorial' for this HERE.

This time for the heart, I used a mix of Durham Quilt collection fabrics in the Natural colourway, with a pretty Lecien dot and a tiny pin dot from the Kate Greenaway collection.  The binding is the text print from Poetry.  The eagle eyed will notice the change of background dimension...I forgot to bring some Essex Linen home with me so I used a smaller piece of Putty, that I had to hand.  This measured 8 1/2" x 12 inches.  I also added the extra cotton label using some pretty tape I had in my stash.

Right I think that's all for today and I promise to be back soon...for those of you who follow me on Social Media will know, I've got a new Block of the Month quilt that I'll be sharing soon plus a pretty Tilda Dresden plate quilt that is nearing completion.  Mum has also been working behind the scenes on the Flirty 30's Dresdens and the 'a hexie a day' hexies...so LOTS to share.

In the meanwhile......Happy Stitches!