cactusy cats

This is Frances. The poor thing gets a bum rap because I've had him so long now that it's more like living with a furry, disapproving roommate than having a pet.

He's really a very nice cat.

But this post was really supposed to be about how I'm going to New Mexico for a few days to attend a wedding. Whee!

favorite chocolate cake

Nigella Lawson's (I know, her again - but she's just so lovely and British) Chocolate Guinness Cake has become my family's go-to chocolate cake as of late. My dad and my sister and I get particularly excited about it. I think the feature we're all so mad about with this cake is that it's not overly sweet like some desserts, but has a pleasant tang from the stout.

Also, we love cream cheese.

Chocolate Guinness Cake
Feast
Nigella Lawson

For the cake

1 cup Guiness
1 stick plus 2 tbsp. unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups superfine sugar
3/4 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 tbsp. pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking soda


For the topping

8 oz. cream cheese
1 1/4 cups confectioner's sugar
1/2 heavy cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and line a 9" springform pan.
(I don't bother trying to line a round pan with parchment, so I generally butter and then dust with cocoa powder, nothing bad has happened yet.)

Pour Guiness into a large wide saucepan, add the butter in pats, and heat until the butter's melted. Whisk in cocoa and sugar.

Beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla, pour mixture into pan with beer mixture. Whisk in flour and baking soda.

Pour the cake batter into greased springform pan and bake for 45 minutes to and hour. Leave to cool completely in pan on a cooling rack.

When the cake is cold make the frosting.

Whip cream cheese until smooth. Sift over the powdered sugar and then beat both together. Add the cream and beat until frosting is a spreadable consistancy.

Ice the cake to resemble a frothy pint of Guiness.


Also - I'll be making some animals for the Bizarre Market in Richmond this year, so stay tuned.

one lump or two?

I noticed recently that I have enough supplies to hold several concurrent tea parties and not have to do any dishes. This somehow happens, that I collect things without a clear plan until one day I open the cupboard and say to myself, "Self, how did we come to have so many turquoise ceramic gravy boats?"

I seem to have a particular fondness for cream and sugar sets - apparently if it features both a handle and a spout, I'm interested. Standing in the thrift store, I must tell myself that it is a good, sound, practical purchase (like a deviled egg plate or a potato ricer) - as though I have so many appointments for high tea that it would actually matter whether the sugar lumps were served from persimmon fiestaware or chartreuse melmac.

All this, and I still drink my tea straight up out of a large milk glass.














edited to add: after I posted this I opened a cabinet and found another, undocumented, cream & sugar set. Will it never end?

paper and ink

So I recently started working at our local newspaper and I wanted to share some pictures of the inner workings because I am so enamored with the nuts and bolts and moving parts of the printing process.

When my sister saw these photos she said, "Of course you would work in a room that shade of green."

ponies

For the record, this is possibly the cutest beer ever.

feather in your cap

Admittedly, this has nothing to do with tea towels or the scantily-clad women who adorn them, but it was a pleasant way to spend an evening with a bag of feathers, a pair of vintage clip-on earrings, and a tube of very strong craft adhesive.

Yes, it is a bit on the Kenley Collins side of things, but I'm going to try to ignore that, because I was much more inspired by the ladies at ban.do. Their work is beautiful and full of whimsy, especially to me since I am exactly the sort of girl who thinks putting big fake flowers in her hair is a very fun thing to do.


For anyone that wants to try this, I started by gluing an appropriately sized piece of wool to each of my barrettes and then layering feathers until a.) I ran out of pretty feathers and b.) it looked "done."
I think next time I'll be a little more mindful of of where the feather fuzz ends up. Perhaps the little black and white number could benefit from a bit less fuzz, but then, this was a trial run, right?



A re-purposed earring.



and it's twin.

distractions

This is what I was working on while we watched the most recent presidential debate. It's a very spur of the moment embroidery idea based on a drawing from Kris Chau's website, that I love a lot. Carbon tracing paper is definitely my friend - I now look at a lot of things and wonder how'd they'd look on a tea towel. I have half a mind to fill the bunny in entirely with french knots. I love the idea of the nubbled effect but not so much the idea of making that many french knots. We'll see.

In my next post I may share my series of Sailor Jerry cheesecake pin-up girl tea towels that happened in much the same manner - I simply cannot sit still and watch television, I have to be doing something with my hands. I'll have to wrangle them all first though, as they long since went into dutiful, if scantily clad, service in the kitchen.

here fishy fishy

In the shop now: George, the chubby unassuming cable knit shark. I'll be honest, this was an experimental pattern - he's sort of a modified manatee - but I think it works if you like your sharks round and woolly.

rabbit rabbit

chin up, everyone. have some toast. happy first.