Birthday cakes when you are young are very important and leave lasting impressions.  Antony’s most memorable cake was an elaborate train cake from the Women’s Weekly Cookbook for his 6^th birthday.  (Note: Ant isn’t sure if he has fantasised getting this cake or if he actually got it! Pauline?)

What cake do you remember?

The birthday cake I find most memorable was a cake my older sister got for maybe her 16^th birthday.  What was most memorable was not so much the cake itself, but that it was the first time (at least as I remember it) my mum deviated from ‘The Birthday Cake’.  Adding up our birthdays, my mum must have made the same cake 51 times!

The Birthday Cake is a white cake with a pale yellow (due to butter and an egg yolk) icing covering the whole cake.  It would then be decorated always with the same border, and our age written out in big numbers; and sometimes, if we were lucky, some flowers.  This decoration icing was always in our assigned colour – given to us at birth I think.  I always had blue, Amy had red, Spencer had green, and Prairie had yellow.  Usually the cake was served still in its baking tin.  My siblings and I could only dream of more than one colour, let alone an entire train.  I bet my brother remembers just as clearly as I do, drooling over the elaborate cakes in the books at Carvel (now  Carousel) ice-cream on Toorak Road.

So, what did my very lucky sister get for her 16^th birthday? Well in a crazy culinary adventure, my mother put chocolate chips in Amy’s cake, and instead of icing she got cinnamon sugar!

Needless to say, The Birthday Cake has always been somewhat of a joke in my family.

Although it is still fun to tease my mother about The Birthday Cake, it is actually a very tasty cake, and according to me there is no cake more special.  I made one yesterday for our friend Fara.  Note, I spoiled him by taking it out of the tin, and using two colours!  He was clearly very happy. J

I’m still not quite ready to attempt another dress using my dressform and so I tried out another pattern.  I used New Look 6725 which I think is probably from the mid-nineties, but I can’t find any date on it.  It’s a very simple pattern with separate side panels, rather than front darts.  This is definitely the best dress pattern I’ve found for me.  I think it fits my body perfectly.  The material I used was from the curtain store and I’ve used it several times for little girls dresses, in fact the very first dress I made was from this material.   It doesn’t feel very me, but I like it.  Kind of funny, my best friend told me that I’d start wearing more colours than just black when I started making my own clothes.  She was so right!  I’m considering going and spending more than £1 per metre to get some fabric I really love and make this dress again; that’s how much I like this pattern!

I think he would disagree, but it seems Antony has a cycle of buying a shirt, wearing it for a while, and then deciding he doesn’t like it for a number of possible reasons.  He rarely wears a shirt to its death. (Note, I am talking about shirts, not T-shirts.  T-shirts he wears forever!  He still has and wears a Chicago tourist T-shirt that my mother gave him 15 years ago despite the many many holes and having not liked it in the first place.)

Usually after the shirts hang untouched for several months in the closet, we put them in the charity bins, but most recently, with my new sewing skills, I decided I could recycle the latest off cast.  So I made this cute little dress.  You can see from the pics how I cut up the shirt.  I just laid the front and back sections of a dress I like the shape of down on the shirt and drew their outline.  I sewed French seams up the sides, then sewed the purple bias tape around the sleeves.  Easy peasy and it took less than 2hours.  Now I’m wishing I still had some of the shirts Ant got rid of, as a couple were ace fabrics.

This dress is a size 3 which I think is about the ideal for conversion from Ant’s shirts (size L and XL).  The collar would probably be too big for a little girl, and the length of the shirt too short for a bigger one!

After a third attempt using the dressform I got a bit frustrated with a big failure, and decided to make something using a pattern.  I chose Simplicity 6633 from 1966.  It’s very simple and cute.  The green material I found at the Salvation Army Op Shop in Collingwood.  I think it was probably someone’s table cloth as evident from some small wine stains which I was mostly able to cut around.  It’s made in Japan and is very soft (in a pre-loved sort of way).  The strong rounded collar is fab, and not like anything I’ve seen in shops.  I’m not a huge fan of the body of the dress because it is completely straight and a bit too tight on my hips. I think not the best design for my awesome womanly curves!

My niece Niamh turned three, now over 3 weeks ago.  I was late with my present, but she now has it so I can post some pics.  There isn’t too much to say about it.  I used Butterick pattern 2194 from 1962 and the material is another op shop buy from when I was back home in January.  I’m happy with this dress and think it’s super cute!

The rest of the pics from the Cowley Carnival, including the awesome slide.