She had loaned me her wool combs and it came to me that I could make her a new protective sleeve for them for a surprise birthday gift. The original sleeve worked buuuuut, I had other ideas.
I haven't really done any leather tooling since I was 14. I did a little instructing when my son was a cub scout and our den made bead fobs but this would be something much more complicated and involve hand sewing!
Here is the original sleeve. Nice but (kind of boring).
So I made a pattern from the original, then visited Tandy leather for the first time in YEARS. I went on black Friday and scored fantastic deals on leather and additional tools I needed. The guys in the store were sweet and very helpful. I watched some you tube videos on sewing and tooling and jumped in to tackle this new challenge
I ended up cutting the sleeve narrower than the fabric one. After I had already sewn the sides. Grrrrrr. I decided 3 snaps gave it more bling than one. Then found out I should have dyed it before I sewed it up. (Oh well, it worked) I just smashed my dye soaked çloth down inside the sleeve repeatedly until it was well covered.
Tooling was what I remembered it to be. The pic was really small and hard to bring to life. Then the snaps ended up being crooked. Grrrrrr. Overall it turned out to be something I felt OK giving to my friend. (The middle snap almost made me redo it all)
Best of all the sleeve fit like a glove. Funny, it ended up being about the same color as the original.
Now, the candied lemon slices I made earlier were also for this friend.
Her kids threw her a party which was for her 70th birthday.
I made white chocolate cupcakes with lemon curd filling and whipped white chocolate frosting with candied lemon garnish. I also made red velvet cupcakes with chocolate gang he filling/topping and cream cheese frosting with chocolate mint hest garnish. I surprised her with tiramisu cups garnished with chocolate curls. Here is a pic showing an example of each one.
I did sample some of the ingredients to make sure they tasted OK. I had to test the mascarpone custard several times and yep, it made me feel sick. No sugar or carbs for me. (Insert big sigh here)
My sweetie helped deliver them and set them up.
Then we enjoyed the conversation we had with friends. It was nice to be inspired to ride my bike more this year. My sweetie seemed to enjoy talking about how fun Ragbrai is. (It is such a fun ride!)
Then watching the b-day gal enjoy the company, conversation and gifts from friends was wonderful. It was a nice mix of family and new and long time friends. What a nice way to end a special day that started months ago for me.
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