Christmas baking

I love Christmas baking with my kids. Last weekend we made gingerbread cookies and traditional Finnish star-shaped plum-tarts. S is already competent baker and has been responsible for plum-tarts for about two years now. (It helps that the dough can be bought ready!) I made her and K aprons last year and they are very handy. I used the Little Helper Apron pattern by Maggie Elizabeth designs as a basis even though my resulting aprons are much simpler than the complicated detailed aprons in the pattern. The tonttu (Finnish version of Santa’s elves, that are more garden-gnome like.) hats of course are part of Christmas baking! Besides they keep hair out of the way!

I made myself an apron, too. For some reason I have always liked the look of the old traditional white aprons that women used to wear in the beginning of the 20th century. Mine is completely constructed out of rectangles. The shoulder straps cross each other at the back so that the apron stays in place and the waistband is closed with a button. I added big patch pockets to decorate the hem of the apron.

S loves the taste of gingerbread dough so she of course sneaked pieces in her mouth. Luckily this dough is safe to eat!

After all the cookies were baked K joined the gang and together with S the children decorated the gingerbread cookies using sugar-paste and sprinkles. Aren’t they cute!

And here are the rest of the goodies. The plum tarts have been decorated with a bit of icing sugar:

I have now been snacking on these. At the same time I am making new patters for my blouses and going up a size or (oops!) three. Hey! Bigger size means more sewing for me! Yay! (And I can’t believe how small some of my old and trusted patterns are now that I look at them.)

Happy Holidays for all of my readers and see you soon! Happy sewing!

Katja