Stash-busting #2

My theme for this stash-busting project is hearts/love, but as I've been looking for patterns to work on, I came to realize that I'm not a big "hearts" person. So, my theme is slowly moving towards "things I love". I am much more comfortable with this theme. Thus, my second stash-busting project were my love of maneki nekos!

Maneki neko literally means "beckoning cat" in Japanese. It is also sometimes referred to as a lucky cat or a welcoming cat. They are typically found in front of stores and businesses as a lucky charm to welcome or beckon in prosperity and luck. While maneki nekos can come in all kinds of colors, shapes, and sizes, there are typically two more prominent distinctions that are made between them. The distinctions are whether the neko (cat) is raising its left or right paw (and sometimes even both!). Which paw is raised and the meaning attached to it differs within the culture, but when I first learned about them one paw was meant to beckon wealth, while the other was to beckon luck.

I ended up making two versions--a teeny tine neko and a small-ish-medium sized neko. I made two partially because I had a lot of fun making the first one, and partially because I wanted to see how the pattern I made for this project looked using the standard double-thread version. I also altered the larger version to make the coin stand straight up, rather than tilted in the smaller one. I absolutely love the tiny version. It is incredibly cute and oh-so tiny!

Stash-busting

In January, I signed up for a long term needlepoint project via Nuts About Needlepoint. Though it has taken me over a month to get into the groove (classes can be demanding and take precedence over fun-time), I finally started my first of 10 small projects.

This project had been one that I have been wanting to try for a long time, so I decided to use it as a jumping off point. My "theme" for this challenge will be hearts/love.

One of my comfy long-sleeve shirts.

Halfway through the project and it's going quite well.

Almost finished.

As the DIY tutorial explains, a little water on the sheet and it peels away fairly easily. I used some tweezers to help pull the paper away from the center stitches. 

I am very happy with the outcome of this first project and it is quite encouraging for the rest of the challenge. 

Cake Pops

I've had my eye on numerous baking blogs and many of them have, at one point in time, made cake pops. The idea intrigued me and as I seem to have extra time on my hands after graduating and waiting for my resume to work its wonders, I decided to use the last of my cake ingredients from the cupboard and try them out.

Following Bakerella's Cake Pop guide, I baked my 1 box of white cake (with black and orange sprinkles!)


Mixed it with 1 can of tasty chocolate frosting that (surprisingly) shrank the volume of mix I had, but still ended up making more than 60 pops.

Roll the mix into small, quarter-sized balls and let chill. While they are chilling, heat up the melting chocolate. Bring out the chilled pan and get your lollipop sticks handy. Dip about half an inch of the stick into the melting chocolate and then insert them halfway into the cake balls.

I had a little snag occur when I realized we had no scrap of styrofoam in the house to place the pops in while they cooled after their chocolate bath. A trip to Walmart created a little bitterness, when it was discovered that they do sell styrofoam, but for $8 a sheet. Well, that was not going to happen. Returning home a tad bit annoyed, I rigged up a stand out from the top of a styrofoam take-home food container stuffed with the remnants of easter basket grass for some semblance of stability. It worked out well enough, but I had to do the pops in batches of 9 until they were cool enough to move and not smear the chocolate.

Once the stick is inserted, dip the cake ball in the chocolate and give it a nice, even coating, and then place the stick end in the styrofoam to let the chocolate dry.

All in all, they came out deliciously wonderful. And the best part is that they can be made with any flavor combination of cake, frosting and coating chocolate.


The only real problem I had with the actual pops was getting the chocolate coating to melt thinner and smoother--which is in part due to my double boiler being on it's last leg (and that I have shamefully not purchased a candy thermometer yet) and the fact that I refuse to microwave chocolate. (I believe it degrades the chocolate to melt it such a way :P.) Getting them to cool took a little longer than it should have because the air was just so humid that day. But, for a first attempt, I think they came out wonderfully and I am already working on developing sugar free versions for a diabetic friend of the family.