Sunday 11 July 2010

Have your birthday cake and eat it...

Well, I can't, it's not my birthday - but it was my gorgeous little sister's birthday this week, as well as about fifty other people I know, and I never need much of an excuse for cake... So happy birthday to Leyla, and to everyone else who's been cutting cake recently!

It was partly this and partly the triumph of finally finishing a long standing commission that inspired this weeks' blog - subject being, as you've guessed, birthday cake. It actually goes back to a house party in May when Natalie and I were hailing the virtues of cake, and everything cake related (in fact, I'd just listed a couple of knitted cupcakes on my shop - one has sold now but the other is still available!); so she charged me with designing a cupcake shaped knitted handbag... and here's what I came up with!

The body of the bag is knitted with three strands of wool together on slightly-too-small needles, thereby making it stiffer and with a tighter weave, and giving the walls more practical integrity. It's also great fun knitting with more than one strand when you mix up the colours, as you get these beautiful depths of colour and texture. The base is in good old fashioned seed stitch - I experimented with more complex stitches but this one worked the best - and the top in even more old fashioned stockinette stitch, with a row of loop stitch (as used also in KD's Loopy Teacosy) to give the cake a little bit of decoration. And of course, there's the customary cherry on top. Perfick :)

The keen eyed among you will notice that it's not Friday ergo this is not a Folksy Friday post (boo), for which you can thank the tragic demise of my laptop on Wednesday (double boo); nonetheless I thought it would still be nice to take a shufti at the Folksy vaults.

And how can you have a birthday without a birthday card? Especially one with a cake! This 'Happy Birthday' Cake Greetings Card by Quite Contrary Crafts is simple but so striking, and can be personalised! They are painstakingly handcrafted and each comes with a coordinated envelope. Moonpig can sod off.

Now, look at this next item and tell me just how delicious it looks. Getting your mouth watering yet? Yeah, it's a candle. Don't believe me? Click on it. This amazingly lifelike Banana and Bubblegum Glittery Cup Cake candle by Mr Wick is not only mouthwateringly tempting, it also has a yummy banana fragrance. I'm almost annoyed it's not real.
This final item is - IMHO - sheer brilliance. These Birthday Cake Meerkats from Nifty Knits are knitted in the round in one piece, rather impressively, and make excellent birthday gifts. You can even choose which kind of cake your meerkat is holding, and wires in the legs and tails enable them to be freestanding. WANT.

This is just torture for me now, what with my own birthday being a full 8 months away... I'm off to stuff my face with cake. Please feel free to comment if you have a birthday cake related crafty thing or have seen something as beautiful as these!
Love and knitties,
KD x

1 comment:

  1. Having another go at commenting - was beginning to think blogger doesn't like me *sob*

    thanks for featuring the kats, and have I mntioned how cute your cake bag is? have your cake and carry it - very clever!

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