calm There was quite a bit of baking involved, most of it specialized for everyone's dietary restrictions, which was actually kind of fun to figure out.
Vegan Cookies 'n' Cream Cupcakes. Oh dear. These were definitely the winners of the night. I'd make them every week if I could. Dan even gave them his stamp of approval by having 4 of them, even though he's not big into the vegan thing.
Gluten-Free and Vegan Golden Vanilla Cupcakes with powdered sugar in my haphazard patterns...both of these cupcake recipes are from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.
Then, S'mores Brownies from Joy the Baker. Let's get a better look at these, shall we?
Gooey marshmallows, fudgy brownies, graham cracker cinnamony-ness. These were my favorite, hands-down.
Caramels from the Betty Crocker cookbook. Easier than I thought, but still required two separate tries to make them. First time...caramel-flavored hard candy that I'm still trying to get out of the pan.
Here's my little party table, complete with labels for everyone. You can see my Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble from everybody likes sandwiches in there. I couldn't get a good shot of it since it was ready after the sun went down, but it was tasty, especially with melty vanilla ice cream. First time eating rhubarb, too, so I think that I did pretty good.
I'll spare the pictures of my guests because I'd like them to still like me. No one looks good with a flash in a really dark apartment.
Other than that, I've been finishing up projects and going to CNA training everyday. The classes are 9-5 every single day, and I have to drive about 1 hour to get there. It's hard and it's a ton of work, but it's worth it. I'll have more to say about it when I'm done with my clinicals, I'm sure. Right now I'm still kind of overwhelmed.
So instead of that - pretty things!
My Cranberry Cowl Scarflette was supposed to just be a neckwarmer-type-thing, but the ball band on that handspun silk lied to me.
The yarn, though, made for a lovely knitting experience. It's soft and crunchy at the same time. I finished this a while ago, but I think that the Foofaraw shawl pin ties it all together.
Then, the Stricken socks.
Oh baby. This one was a real challenge, but it was worth it. I wouldn't do this with handspun again because it was just too irregular for something so convoluted, but oh man...I'm still in love with Cookie A. sock patterns, and I always will be.