Birthday Surprises

Today is my sister Anne's birthday - happy birthday, Anne! She was up to the Valley on the weekend for meetings so we thought the timing was pretty good to surprise her with a birthday cake, candles and all. Jane was up at the cottage for the weekend too so she was able to join us in the celebrations.














I had lots of ripe bananas and was dying for a good piece of chocolate cake so I tried this recipe for Chocolate Banana Cake. Not only was the batter really lovely but the consistency of the cake is great and stays nice and moist because of the bananas; I also used buttermilk in it, which makes for a nice consistency. And the baking time was exactly as printed, which was nice. I iced it with a chocolate ganache and it was delicious with a scoop of vanilla ice cream (you always need ice cream with birthday cake!). Despite four of us taking a good charge at it and pieces going home with both of the gals, the Official Cookie Tester and I have been nibbling away at the last of it for the better part of the week and it is still lovely. I'll be making this one again.

All of this reminded me of a book that I'd received for my birthday a while back that I'd been wanting to share with you - it's Sarah Fielke's Quilting From Little Things... I'd been intrigued by a scrappy Flying Geese quilt on one of the cover photos (there are actually 2 covers) but really fell for lots of what's inside...

and, as luck would have it, the one quilt in the book that doesn't have a pattern. I think the photo was taken in her sewing room and this is what she had on the design wall.

LUV it! It's going on the list.

It's the colours in it as much as anything.













There was a second shot of it used as a double page spread in the book that really shows it off nicely.

I was so focused on getting shots of this one that I completely forgot to take pics of the one that appealed to me initially so I'll share that next time...M