Sunday, April 25, 2010

Sunday Sweets: Gettin' Crafty

Sunday, April 25, 2010

I looove crafts. I'll try just about any of them at least once before getting frustrated and giving it up. Open-minded but impatient: that's me!

Well, today's Sweets all have elements that look like needlework, or knitting, or papercraft, etc - but they're all completely edible. Very cool. Promise.

Here we go!


I've done cross stitch since I was 12, but the few times I tried actual needlework/embroidery it turned out...well...let's just say not nearly as pretty as this:

(Submitted by Libby G. & made by Dragonsanddoffodils)

So now I know: Next time, try it with icing.

Oh, and speaking of cross stitch, check THIS out:

(Submitted by Jen. Baker unknown)

I was just reading a tutorial on this in a recent issue of ICES. There are molds for the cross stitch cloth, and then you pipe the tiny stitches using royal icing. Even this close, it looks just like the real thing! Plus, you can use any cross stitch pattern. Very cool.

I'm not sure which craft this next one would be, exactly, but I love how it looks like a heavy fabric wrapped loosely around the cake:

(Sub'd by Jennie S. & made by The Cakemaker)

That's actually rolled white chocolate. Great use of texture.

For you quilters out there:

(Sub'd by Bernise C., made by Heather C. & her friend Carol)

Patchwork quilting, that is. It looks so soft, like the whole cake is really a huggable plush!

How about some crochet?

Pretty, right? Ah, but wait until you see a close up of that christening gown:

(Made Cake Central member sweetpea8)

That is ALL ICING, y'all. Hand-piped to mimic the crocheting of the real christening gown. For realz. Wowza.


Ever try quilling? I did (once), and the results can be so pretty; delicate and intricate. You basically takes tiny strips of paper and wind and twist them into shapes. One of the best quilling artists I've ever seen is Yulia Brodskaya - just look how gorgeous:


So now that you know what it is, can you spot the quilling on this cake?


(Sub'd by Heidi M. & made by the Vanilla Pastry Studio)

Even some of the flowers look like curled paper - and the others are like ribbon and fabric. So, so pretty.


Sweet Assignment: Next week I'll be featuring Fashion Sweets: gorgeous dresses, fabrics, accessories, or anything couture-inspired. Have one to nominate? Then send it to me at Sunday Sweets [at] Cake Wrecks [dot] com!

- Similar Sweets: That Takes the Cake, Pt 1
Sarah said...

Those are gorgeous! Thanks for all the cakes, Jen!

Jules AF said...

Wow. I love that cake with the "fabric" draped over it. WOW

Dottie Paullin Kornafel said...

My Mom was a cake decorater and I remember some of the really neat ones she made - especially the standing rib roast for a butcher. I was kind of young then and now wish I had photos of them. For a while there she was making lots of "boob" cakes for bachelor parties. She was had a catering business and made wedding dolls out of the lunch meat and cheese. Even after she retired several other businesses hired her to make these. Her pototo salad always had a shape too. Your cakes are just gorgeous.

BigP's Heather said...

I crochet prayer shawls - very simple patterns. I can't imagine doing a dress - much less the time it would take to do that in ICING! I'm in awe!

I hadn't heard of quilling before but now I'm in love with it!

Hope Chella said...

The cross stitch one is so funny!!!!

impotenta said...

I love this cake...it`s incredible.:)

dawn said...

Love Grandma's cross stitch cake! Did you know that the little hexagon-shaped design on the lower right of the cake is a quilt pattern called Grandmother's Flower Garden?

Melinda said...

The quilting cake about made me keel over. SO CUTE! I love being reminded of how simple squares can be gorgeous on a quilt...and a cake.

Larisa said...

I love Sunday Sweets! I love admiring the talent.

Anonymous said...

As much as I enjoy the wreckitude in the course of the week, I really look forward to the Sunday batch. These are lovely. Especially:

-the perfect grandma cake! I'll bet she loved it.

-the christening gown...just wow.

-the baby shower cake that miraculously managed to completely convey "we are celebrating the impending birth of a child" *without* putting any part of said child on the cake, depicting the pregnant mother, or, of course, having the word "Push" on it anywhere. Who knew it could be done? Bravo!

--kate

sendingtheclowns said...

Oh..oh...OH!!! That lace christening gown is just exquisite!!! [I almost can't wait to see Gabrielle Marie's first birthday cake!]
The "fabric-wrapped" cake makes me think that the creator could do an awesome chef's hat cake--the top layer almost looks like one already! Very cool.
I don't really care for the "heavy" look of the quilt cake, but the darling little bear, baby, and bunny are super-sweet touches.
I'm looking forward to next week's fashion show! Such a fun idea!!
Maybe someone has tried a fondant LEATHER. Why not? It could look gorgeous and the medium would lend itself so well (though pretty UN-PC) to a jacket, or belt, or shoes, etc.
I have to go find something sweet now; these things really set off my craving alarm!
=^~.~^=

Casey said...

I love the paper wrapped cake... sounds yummy with the white chocolate, too! I think the most amazing, though, is the crocheted dress! That must have taken HOURS!

Anonymous said...

I think this is one of my favorite Sunday Sweets EVER. That crochet dress. I am BLOWN away! Phenomenal!

Anonymous said...

All the Sunday Sweets were great (aren't they always?) but the last two really blew me away. Crocheted icing? *sigh* I can't even handle the regular kind!

And I LOVED the quilling. My grandmother used to have some hanging in her room when I was little, and now I wish I knew what happened to it.

Gary said...

Wow-- crochet icing. How many months did that cake take to decorate?

Sorry, but the baby doll on the baby-block cake makes it a wreck. Cannibalism just isn't cool.

Is cross-stitching really easier than needlepoint? It looks like almost the same thing to me, except that the stitches are perpendicular in one, and parallel in the other.

Anonymous said...

These cakes are breathtaking!

That crocheted dress is unbelievable!

PhotoGrace said...

As a relatively accomplished crocheter .... WOW to the christening gown cake. I know how long that would take with a hook and thread ... but icing? Incredible.

rascalmom said...

Wow, I think this is my favorite Sunday Sweets post ever. I knit, crochet and needlepoint (and am now getting into beadwork), and those are...wow...just incredible. The christening gown and the needlepoint roses particularly blew me away. Hard enough to do with actual thread but with ICING? Thanks for sharing these!

Tracy said...

"Thank goodness I'm over the feelings of inadequacy clever and talented people illicit in me due to my failings with all things creative," she said, adding raisin eyeballs to the nutella on her ego waffle.

Unknown said...

They're all so beautiful. I wish I could be so creative, but none of my cakes have ever been that amazing. I can surely copy, but the minds that dreamed these up (let alone executed them so amazingly) are simply brilliant!

TisforTonya said...

WOW! I think I just got some good ideas for decorating my next cake... too bad my next one is for my 15 year old son... you think he'd prefer quilling or cross-stitch (because I am NOT doing that crochet thing - beautiful though it may be!)

I love Sundays!

India Drummond said...

Wow, that crocheted icing is incredible.

Anonymous said...

Oh yummy! lovely!

wish I hadn't looked now, have just started a diet

Fluffy Cow said...

These are so beautiful, I could weep.

Harmony said...

Beautiful!!! And I have never heard of quilling before but I did see it as headers in a recent issue of O magazine and thought it was cool. Now I know what it is! Now I have to google it and figure out how to do it! haha

Chava Malka Cooper said...

absolutely gorgeous! and i would prefer to really crochet a dress than make one out of icing!

Danielle D. said...

My mom is a quilter and embroiderer. My aunt does cross-stich. My grandma was into quilling. The other grandma made amazing crochet work. We are all sewers and stitchers to some degree. This was a Sunday Sweets designed for all the wonderful women in my family! Amazing and beautiful. Just like us. :o)

silu said...

you are of my Sunday sweets.I was kind of young then and now wish I had photos of them.

Unknown said...

As noted above, the cross-stitch cake also includes but quilting. The background is also candle-wicking.

Unknown said...

My grandmother on my dad's side was an amazing quiller. We still have some quilled paper Christmas ornaments she made--so pretty!

Ryan, Corrie, Max, and Jack said...

Wow! Jen, you made my day! Those are all gorgeous! And, like so many others, I'm hungry now. Maybe I'll go back through and look at some wrecks I've missed. Think that will help kill my appetite?

Lilly said...

I honestly had a little spasm looking at the quilling cake. It's just too awesome.

Little Lovables said...

wow, these are some amazing and creative works of art!

Jessica - One Shiny Star said...

These are so cool - and I've never heard of quilling before, but it looks awesome!

Unknown said...

WOW!!

Unknown said...

I suppose the fabric cake could be considered draping, which is the 'art' of creating a dress without a pattern, just draping the fabric across the model until it forms a dress and sewing/stitching from there. Still, gorgeous!

Deb said...

Amazing! Absolutely amazing.

Kate M. said...

I can't possibly express how happy I am that you correctly identified that as crochet. All of those cakes are absolutely beautiful.

Unknown said...

My poor carpal-tunnely hand saw the crochet piping and detached itself, then flew into a dark corner to hide and weep.

I am in awe of that amount of piping.

akprincess72 said...

I think the wedding cake is supposed to look like Aida cloth (cross-stitch fabric). Either way & whatever it is, it's gorgeous!!!
I wish I could decorate, but I can only stitch. These people are so talented!

Anonymous said...

@ SemperVeritas:
Nutella? Well, look at you there, Miss Fancy Pants!

@ Gary:
If you don't want baby on your cake, just scrape it off. They're small.

Culinarychiq said...

Those are some gorgeous cakes! I especially love the christening gown, how long did that take to do I wonder?

Well, since you're talking food that looks like crafty things Ima do a cheap plug and tell you I make candles that look and smell like food:) Take a gander when you have a minute: culinarychiqconcepts.etsy.com

Anonymous said...

Oh my goodness! Such perfection & beauty. Being a cross-stitcher and crafty-kinda-gal (who also loves to "do" quilling) AND an admirer of cake decorating, today's blog entry has my eyes totally satisfied and wanting a cigarette! LOL! These are the best of both my worlds. Thanks for keeping your blog awesome and interesting...even after all your successes! Best Luck on continued success.

Me said...

These are AMAZING!!! I wish I could do that. If I only had some cake....
then I'd get some ingredients and make one like that XD

Mary Connealy said...

You're hilarious everyday, Jenn, but oh, on Sundays. You find such beautiful things. The quilt cake. Absolutely precious.
That crocheted dress. It's just amazing. I loved the white chocolate wedding cake.

All of them--the people who created them are true artists. It would be so hard to cut them. It almost seems wrong. Imagine the work.

Scarlett Burroughs said...

I love the patchwork cake so much I linked to it here

http://quilting.craftgossip.com/ta-dah-patchwork-cake/2010/04/25/

My readers will love it!

Scarlett Burroughsf
Quilting Editor, Craft Gossip

Mozz said...

wow.. This is just pure awesomeness..
That christening robe must have taken hours..
Thank you for sharing these :D

Hope said...

As a crocheter, I was especially impressed with the "crocheted" dress.

serns said...

I know the perfect cake for quilling, do a cake of a broken open "party popper" (the relatively-benign firework with the little rolls of paper inside).

Anonymous said...

So, can we see the results of your single foray into quilling?

sendingtheclowns said...

@Culinarychiq:

Helped myself to a gander! That's some fun stuff you're cooking up over there, I must say.
Yum ME. Love the Java Cats coffee bean cats (for the "coffee enthusiast".
(I got your *enthusiast* right here; I'll take that and raise you one addict!)
Bacon candles? Bring it!
And seriously--"PMS in a Jar"???
Coffee candles in glass mugs...I can smell them from here.
I think I'm in love...
=^u.u^=

Arlene said...

Wow makes me wish I could do needlepoint or make a quilt. These are too beautiful to even take a knife too.. unlike some of the evil wrecks we had this week one of which ( the evil possessed doll) is giving me the shivers just thinking about lol.

GeneBrinson said...

The icing crotchet is breathtaking, quilling is now my favorite, the fabric wedding cake rules the northern hemisphere of cake-dom and I just drank a 64 ounce jug of water so forgive my typos, but Im in a hurry.
THank you for your blog you guys. It seriously just brightens my day......egads Ive just soiled.....

Gene Brinson said...

@Serns- I totally know what you are talking about! I ate one! They are really really salty and then my mom freaked out and called poison control...But that would totally make a great cake!

Becca said...

Sunday is my favorite day on this site.....LOVE the beautiful cakes. I think I like the one with quilling the best. BEAUTIFUL....makes me want to learn how to do it!

Anonymous said...

This makes me want to try quilling! I'm just like you when it comes to crafting, always excited to try something new, and equally thrilled to chuck out unfinished crafting projects ^^

Jules AF said...

I don't know what to do without a new post in the morning before I go to work. I hope everything is okay.

Nectarine said...

I have to say, creating a replica of a beautiful christening gown on the cake is MUCH preferred to those creepy baby dolls you featured recently!

Suzanne said...

All I can say is WOW! That is some major talent.

flying gargoyle said...

The artistry on these cakes just leaves me in awe. Thanks, Jen & cohorts!

Casey said...

That first one is the most beautiful cake I have ever seen.

Unknown said...

I'm a crocheter, and I'm blown away by the christening gown cake. Wow! If that's the CAKE then the real thing must be amazing!

The quilling cake is also stellar. How did they get the fondant to stand on end like that? Wow.

Michelle said...

Jen, you made me laugh out loud with your first sentence. Thank you, I love starting my morning with cake wrecks!

lisadh said...

As a stitcher, wanna be quilter, and all-around crafts lover, these are just beautiful!! Absolutely incredible. I can't pick a favorite; they're all wonderful!

evalyn said...

What lovely lace...oh, hand cramp, hand cramp!

Rachael Williams said...

Wowio! I'm a rather prolific crocheter (if I do say so myself), and I am so impressed with that christening gown cake! The piping on that is amazing; it's clear enough that I could hazard a guess at what the pattern is--looks like some double-layered double-crochet fans with single-crochet edgings. Very lovely!

Heather Justesen said...

Wow, these are awesome! I totally want to try that quilt design, and the dress was INCREDIBLE! Some day, many years in the future when I am much, much better at piping, I'm going to try something like that!

sorryifarted said...

hey guys, I think that crochet cake might be made with a product called sugerveil. it's pretty cool, you can mix it up like putty then put it into a mold and it sets up, but doesn't get hard so you can peel it out of the mold and make it look cloth-like. I would be surprised if it was actually all piped out by hand. ICES had a neat thing on the product a couple of issues ago when they made a grooms cake with an ascot on it.

ilovebabyquilts said...

As a quilter I have to say, the stitches on the quilt cake look like someone stitched a Frankenstein monster! That quilter needs some practice.

barbie2be said...

oh my GOD, that christening dress is FANTASTIC!

Anonymous said...

OMG - Love them! And I am lovin' the little bunny on the quilt cake. Just sayin'.