Cross-Stitch and Buttercream?

I first learned to cross-stitch back in the eighties. It was so much more flexible than the needlepoint that I'd learned to do in the seventies ... Wow! I'm really dating myself here. Somewhere around the same time, I first started to teach myself how to decorate cakes based on my gleanings from a 1974 Wilton Cake Decorating Yearbook that lived on the shelf with my mom's recipe books. Never would I have imagined that two of my favourite hobbies could actually be joined together. One can't help but get a bit messy at times, and the other should ALWAYS be kept far away from sweet, sticky things ... unless you decide to trade in your floss for an icing bag with a really fine tip and your cloth for a cake covered in fondant. Add in a cross-stitch pattern that just happened to be on the bib I'd purchased to cross-stitch as a gift for the same baby shower for which I was thrilled to be making a cake and you've got great cake inspiration ... As long as you're crazy enough to think cross-stitching with buttercream sounds like fun. This blog post does come with the warning that mixing these two hobbies is not for the faint of heart. Consider yourselves warned =D

To celebrate the pending birth of her first grandchild, my friend Lynn asked if I would make a cake for the baby shower. I couldn't resist. I knew how excited she was about the little one's arrival and she'd already been a great source of encouragement on my cake decorating adventure.  She’s the same one who got me started making goodies for work and who needed the Scrabble cake for a friend’s birthday.

I'd seen the idea of cross-stitching on fondant when we’d been looking through books for inspiration with a cake decorating class I'd taken several years ago. I can remember thinking it looked gorgeous, but who would be crazy enough to do that for a cake! It’s one thing to do that kind of detail work on a piece of cloth that will likely be kept for a long time, but on something edible, that will be eaten in less time than you spend creating it? That seemed ridiculous. It still does, but doing the ridiculous and making realistic looking things out of cake and icing is exactly what I love best about cake decorating. You just need to make sure you take lots of pictures to remember the moment while it lasts.

The mom-to-be liked elephants and they found their way into practically every part of the shower. I’m pretty certain I did actually squeal in the craft store when I discovered that the bib I needed to buy for my planned cross-stitched gift came with a pattern for dancing elephants.  Combine that with an idea that our manager had seen in a magazine to make a onesie out of cake and I had to try the crazy idea of cross-stitching with buttercream. 

Add some blue strips of fondant marked to look like stitching to make the bias tape edgings and some stars and hearts for to make an overall pattern and you’ve got a onesie … good thing it was for a baby boy since the shoulders are pretty broad.  Football player anyone?

If I’m ever crazy enough to cross-stitch in buttercream again, I’d make the icing an even thinner consistency.  It’s a lot of fine piping and the combination of icing that was a little too stiff and a very tired hand meant that the detail was not as clean as I imagined in my head.  The end result looked more like stamped cross-stitch than my preferred counted cross-stitch, but …

… when you pair it up with the matching bib, the combination was everything I’d hoped for.

It’s hard to believe, but Lynn’s grandson turns one today. 

Happy Birthday Cutie Pie!

Can’t wait to see you and celebrate you on Friday.  HUGS!