bookerworx.com

It’s now official folks! I will be teaching Sewing & Quilting Classes at the Cornwall Yarn Shop located at 277 Main Street, Cornwall, New York 12518. For information, check out the Sewing and Quilting Classes link on the menu.

This is a really exciting step for Bookerworx (and me, obviously), so I am really proud and very excited to be back in a classroom! Please check out the classes and get feedback back to Gail, the wonderful owner at the Cornwall Yarn Shop.

Also, I’ve added a Gallery of Quilts to showcase some of my work for you all. Check it out at the Gallery of Quilts link on the menu. Thanks everyone!

As you know, lots of work was done over last summer on a wonderful museum exhibit created by Louise I. Lynch. This is the video narrative of the exhibit. The video shows you the highlights of the exhibit, but again I urge all of you to check out the actual exhibit, which is located at the Hudson Highland Nature Museum in Cornwall-on-Hudson, NY.

Here’s the video: http://www.loulabella.com/2012/01/world-of-bees-virtual-tour.html

(If you are wondering about the fabric arts that I did for it, check out the stuffed larvae, pupae and egg, as well as the large, fuzzy, wall-mounted bumble bee.)

My eldest cousin, Danny, was celebrating his birthday earlier this month and I offered to make the cake for the event. It was just a small gathering on a Friday night after everyone got home from work, so I thought I would take care of it so that his wife didn’t have to stress over a cake. After I offered to make it, I was in a complete quandary. I couldn’t decide on a design….thoughts popped up about old game systems that Danny and I used to play. (I still have the old Atari and would have loved to reproduce it in cake, but thought that after the Day of the Dead cake and our black-food-coloring stained mouths, I should avoid that particular color.)

I decided to make a monster cake, somewhat inspired by Ugly Dolls. I mean, what guy doesn’t like monsters?! So, the A Monster for Danny cake was born. This was a quick cake, but I’ll admit, extremely delicious, as well as a big hit on the design.

Check it out:

Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a Mexican holiday to pray for and take time to remember family members or children who have died. It follows the Catholic holy days of All Saint’s Day and All Soul’s Day (Novemebr 1 and 2, respectively). In Mexico, families will make sugar skulls (Cookies decorated with sugar icing in the shape of elaborate and ornate skulls), make loved ones’ favorite meals and bring it to their grave site, visit, clean, and lay flowers at graves, make Pan de Muerto (Bread of the Dead, which has an luscious orange glaze and spicy anise throughout), spend all night next to the grave, and bring toys to the graves of children.

I have always been fascinated with this holiday and all of its traditions. I like it so much, actually, that going to Mexico during the holiday has been added to my list of things to do before I die.

Several years ago, I made traditional Pan de Muerto. This bread is amazing. It is spicy and sweet all at the same time. It makes the whole kitchen smell of oranges and anise. This year I wanted to do something different.

The Calaveras (Skulls) are what gets interesting. They are so ornate and colorful. I think some people would find it weird to decorate skull cookies for a funeral, but this tradition is beautiful. I found some inspiration there.

This cake was created for a few other reasons, as well. It was meant to go to a Halloween Party as a dessert, and to be a birthday cake for my friend Shawn, but it was truly inspired by Dia de los Muertos.

I hope you enjoy the pictures.

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Here are some photos showing the building process of the Exhibit Opening Cake for The World of Bees Exhibit now showing at the Hudson Highlands Nature Museum in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York. (Please click here for more information: http://www.hhnaturemuseum.org/index.php/your_weekend_visit/exhibits/the_world_of_bees/)

This cake featured 4 hexagon-shaped tiers to represent honey comb. It then had 8 layers, both yellow cake and chocolate cake, which was striped, so the inside looked like a striped bee. It was frosted in a pastel yellow along with colored vines, then covered with dozens of hand-dyed and hand-formed gum paste flowers and bees of all sorts. Every crevice had something to see, and there really was no back to the cake.

The finished cake was displayed on a pedestal, so that people could walk around it. It weighed somewhere near 40 pounds and was very interesting to deliver, but it made it!

The following slideshow shows pictures from each step and then includes pictures of the finished product. Enjoy.

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The World of Bees Exhibit is up and running at the Hudson Highlands Nature Museum in Cornwall on Hudson, New York. Please check it out if you are in the area.

For more information, check out: http://www.hhnaturemuseum.org/index.php/your_weekend_visit/exhibits/the_world_of_bees/

Some work I did for the exhibit includes the Exhibit Opening cake (which was 4-tiered, 8-layers, filled with tons of gum paste bees and flowers and cow’s milk free due to a food allergy) and all of the Fiber Art work that the exhibit contains. Hope you like it! Pictures to come soon!

Recently, I’ve been spending my time working on some museum pieces. There is an exhibit opening up called “The World of Bees: Nature’s Poolinators” and I am currently creating some scientifically accurate fabric stuffies of bee pupae and larvae, giant fleece flowers, beehive smokers, picnic blankets, and a giant “taxidermed” honey bee. This stuff is pretty exciting and it will be wrapping up pretty soon. The exhibit opens in September. For information regarding the exhibit, check out loulabella.com.

Welcome to the NEW and improved Bookerworx website. MUCH MORE to come in the near future. Keep checking in, folks!