Now I'm really making hay!

Today has been a day of accomplishments.  I finished the sweater I was making for Anna.  I started working on it a week ago Sunday, so that was just eleven days ago.  I logged my hours and all total I knitted for approximately 50 1/2 hours. It was a nice challenge since she requested a zip up hoodie with pockets.  I have never put a zipper in a sweater before and I didn't have a pattern for a sweater like she requested.  I found a pattern on free patterns online that had a button up with pockets and a collar.  I decided to use that as my base and figured out a way to put the zipper in instead of buttons.  I found a hooded sweater pattern for the hood and made the hood in place of the collar.  I think it turned out quite nicely.  I've already finished the body and most of the hood for Bill's sweater.  That is the other adult sweater that I have to make.  The problem I am having with it, is that he wanted a color of yarn of which we did not have enough.  It is on order and when it comes in I will be able to finish his sweater, too.  Luckily, he wanted a sweater just like what Anna requested, so I am able to use the same pattern.

Anna's zippered hoodie with pockets.

After that, it was on to making my grandson's birthday cake.  I have been making his cakes for the past three years.  The first year it was his father's farm truck pulling the animal trailer and I placed plastic farm animals all around the scene.  He was only two and couldn't request what he wanted, but I knew he liked the animals, so that is what I made.  Last year, he asked for a ball and bat.  That was easy.  This year, I asked him what he wanted for his birthday and he told me he wanted a cake.  When asked what it was supposed to be this year, he wanted another farm scene.  His mother told him that he already had one like that, but he still wanted something to do with the farm.  He settled on a bale of hay.  Now, how do you make a birthday cake into a bale of hay?  In the olden days when bales of hay were rectangle, that would have been quite easy, but now bales of hay, as he knows them, are round bales covered with white plastic.  His father wanted me to make it like a jelly roll without the jelly and have it green like an uncovered bale.  He thought it would be nice to tie the bales with shoestring licorice.  The other request was to use natural green food coloring.  I set out to fulfill the order.  It wasn't all that easy to make green hay and green frosting with natural food coloring.  I checked online and found out that spinach was the best method for obtaining a green color.  I tried just using the juice, but it wasn't green enough, so I added the spinach itself.  I put some in the jelly roll cake mix for one cake and made another one without coloring.  I wasn't sure if the spinach cake would still roll.  As it turned out, the spinach cake rolled better than the regular one.  I was unable to find shoestring licorice, but my daughter found some peel and eat licorice that was just like it after peeling it, just a little shorter.  I used that to wrap the regular jelly roll cake because it needed something to hold it together.  Then I made some green frosting.  Again I had to add some of the spinach just to get enough green color.  You may be wondering about the taste of these spinach creations...well...the taste isn't all that noticeable...but...the smell is just awful.  Luckily, the green cakes are not all that I made.  I had one other challenge to this whole project.  Mother Ellen has recently discovered that she has a thyroid problem and her doctor told her to cut out sugar and chocolate.  Now, chocolate is Ellis's favorite flavor and I had to have some chocolate in his cake somewhere, so I made some chocolate cakes in veggie cans and covered them in white frosting to look like more bales of hay.  That gave me three white bales as jelly roll cakes and I decorated three chocolate bales to put in his cake scene.  There was another thing that I did with the jelly roll cakes to make them so that Ellen and myself with my type 2 diabetes can eat them.  I used xylotol which is a sweetener derived from other plants that is lower in the triglycerides in the cake.  Then, I made a frosting with another powdered sugar that is recommended for people with diabetes.  I had quite a bit of chocolate cake and plenty of vanilla and chocolate frosting left over after decorating the cakes for the scene, so I just frosted them like cupcakes and put them on a separate plate.  To add to the scene, I bought some Mega Blocks (like Lego's, but half the price) that was a farm scene and is age appropriate for a four year old.  I built the scene and placed them on the board along with the bailed hay cakes.  It took all night, but I am finally finished and almost ready for bed.

Ellis's fourth birthday cake scene.  Check out those green bales of hay in the center.  Imagine what a little spinach can do!