Time for tea

Last weekend, my mom and I were the featured speakers at a ladies' tea event at a local church. My mom has plenty of experience with this kind of thing, but I can't recall doing any public speaking before, outside of school. However, it was fun to work together and I felt good about how the presentation went (much easier to speak in public than to sing a solo -- another recent first!!). Since the event was an (indoor) garden tea party, I spoke about tea etiquette, history, and facts, and my mom gave a devotional.

One of my duties included guiding the ladies through the steps of afternoon tea, so I had to do a little research myself! I have to admit, I haven't paid too much attention to tea etiquette in years past, partly because I often come across conflicting advice, and partly because it just doesn't seem that important to me, as a middle-class American in the 21st century, whether I hold my cup "properly" or not. ;-)


[Do not loop your fingers through the teacup handle! How gauche.]
I decided to bake some scones and take some photos with which to better illustrate my instructions on how to eat them. The top photo in this post is the "posh" way of crumbling a scone into bite-size pieces, then adding a dab of cream and jam to each bite. Below are illustrations of the Devon vs. Cornish tea -- i.e. whether the jam or the cream goes on top first. It's delicious either way!



Look at all that tasty cream and jam. And since we got to eat the scones after I made them, it was a win-win situation! My mom and I were both inspired to host a tea party in the near future. Any excuse to consume tea treats is fine by me.

Spring vagaries

We had a spring thunderstorm a few days ago, and afterward, as the sun was setting, we went outside to marvel at the mammatus clouds. These happen every so often around here, after a storm.






Since then, we've had hail, sleet, and snow... and today, most of it's melted off again, and should be back up in the 60's by the weekend!

When I ask him to smile

...I get this.

I giggled for several minutes straight over this picture. There must be a disconnect in little boys' brains between the command, "Smile," and the muscles that pull the face into a pleasant expression. Not sure when those synapses develop. Maybe never?


Ahhh, that's a little better, Edmund!

Since I made Lavinia an Easter hat I wanted to make something for Edmund, too. I scaled down the David bowtie pattern from BurdaStyle to fit a toddler frame. I think it's tricky to get things right with a bowtie so the wearer doesn't end up looking like Bonzo the Clown. Proportion has a lot to do with it. The bowtie should be about as wide as the wearer's chin and not overly tall. Toddlers have huge heads anyway, so this is almost as big as the bowties I make for Douglas! I used leftover yellow seersucker from my scrap stash and pre-tied the bow. It closes in back with velcro.

One more quick story. On Saturday, we were out and about and my dad took Edmund to use the bathroom. The door said, "Gentlemen," so Dad asked him, "Are you a gentleman, Edmund?" Edmund said, "No, I'm a gentleboy!" Cutie!