Did I Sew?

When I signed up for Friday Night Sew In over at Sugarlane Designs, I forgot that I had a few things on over the weekend that would slow me up on crafting and blogging!
(And here it is Wednesday already, I hope I get this post written today!)
Yes, I did manage a few stitches, here's a taste of what I stitched on FNSI —

Thank you Wendy for hosting Friday Night Sew In. I'm sorry I wasn't a very focussed guest :-)

After dinner and before I sat down to stitch, I made a couple of Birthday Cakes. The next morning, another two—

A sunny morning in the kitchen. Four cakes (two in the tins) ready to go!

... and the rest of Saturday was spent at ED's where four of us got together for a fun time icing them for her two wee ones' first birthday!

YD has the process all sorted. Using my yarn swift which rotates smoothly
to get the layers of buttercream icing nice and even.
All the crevices in my cakes were well and truly covered up!

I had to leave before they were finished, but look how cute they turned out!

Hehe I loved the party hats ED made for the animals!

And for the record, here are five cousins eating cake at the party.

We had a busy party day on Sunday so the only other crafting I touched during the weekend was a bit more work on Lily's latest cardigan. I started this while we were roadtripping with Mum last week but haven't really touched it since.

In other sewing news, a wee while ago I tested another design for Juliet of Tartankiwi. You may remember that I love her designs and I always jump at the chance to help her out, providing (what I hope is) useful feedback. It also gives her a chance to see what her pattern looks like in completely different fabrics.
She has now released this pattern and I am able to share my version of it.

I adore this fellow - he is (officially) the Little Blue Penguin, the world's smallest Penguin and native to New Zealand. The pattern is available *here*.
As always, Juliet's pattern went together well. The only trouble I had was with the eye; I thought I'd picked out a reasonably suitable contrasting fabric for it, but because it was so little, it didn't show very well (and photographs even less well!).
I got out some grey embroidery thread and did a few straight stitches and I'm a lot happier with it now :-)

As the days go by where I don't get near my machine, I worry that I won't meet my One Monthly Goal this month! Those 24 friendship stars aren't going to make themselves!
However yesterday I had some time to myself and managed a pile of pressing—

 — and trimming.

Progress at last! I have a week until the end of the month so surely I can get them made!

Must away,

'til next time,

happy stitches,