Merry Christmas Fudge!

Fudge as only See's Candies can do it.

1/2 cup butter
2 cups Guittard semi-sweet Chocolate chips
1 pound pkg of powder sugar ( 4 cups)
2 fresh eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla or almond flavor

Melt the butter and chocolate chips in a two quart double boiler , low heat, just melt not cook. Remove from heat just as the last chips are melting. Add the eggs and stir gently. Stir in powder sugar one cup at a time. Add the flavoring to the last cup of powder sugar and stir well.  It should be smooth, come away from the pot and pour easily. Pour into cake pan or on a cookie sheet.  Cool, cut in chunks and share lots.

Please take a look at Mary Corbett's for
boughs-of-holly  to embroider a cloth to go with a gift of fudge or
use the holly patter to create a stencil to decorate your fudge.

Hallelujah Chorus Alaska 5th grade class

A Random Act of Culture

Interpreting Needlework kits -Changing them to your style

While looking for a simple flower and leaf motif for my daughter to embroider on Mary Corbet's Needle 'n Thread I came across a pansy kit make-over.

Looking farther another post from Margaret using the same kit and changing it yet again , " Less is More' makes an even more beautiful embroidered pansy.

Compare them all and you can see the difference from the kits original 'paint by number look to the beautiful single thread needle painting.  which one would you rather display?

A Manly Perspective of a Womanly Dominated Art

 Gary Clarke is one of the few men who have ventured from designing to artistically producing beautiful works in the field of embroidery. I especially praise his works for their modesty, fairies, mermaids, and victorian girls. I love a work that is balanced in color, proportion and symmetry. He has designed several affordable kits that I will place on my wish list. Meanwhile we can enjoy his website and his books.

Visiting Beautiful (Blogs) Parlors on the web

I have been visiting some embroidery/ sewing pages on the web that inspire and motivate creativity.

 I went back to Francesca Vanucci's,  La Soffitta del Tempo Perduto to see if she had posted any more progress on her very intricate embroidery project and was delighted that she had worked some of the embroidery after teasing us with her beautiful drawing. She has also added many other pictures of her fine work in sewing and embroidery. I love her balance of color.


While looking for some ideas for handkerchiefs I came across Southern Matriarch  and The Old Fashioned Baby Sewing Room with many examples of heirloom embroidery.

An embroidery book by Trish Burr

On my wish list is a lovely book of embroidery with fine examples of long and short stitch.

A quick tutorial using lazy daisy stitch.

Samplers & Stitches

From Mary Corbett's Needle and Thread Page An online book of Embroidery stitches available for download in PDF format or view online.

Historical needlework Resources

A rich resource of history in art for students.



http://medieval.webcon.net.au/index.html

Drawn Thread work

The beginnings of drawn thread work. I accidentally cut a vertical thread when I was withdrawing the horizontal ones. So I had to quickly learn how to reweave and fix it. I don't think you can see it from the front, but I know where it is.

Wee Folk

http://www.needlenthread.com/2010/08/felt-embroidery-stumpwork-and-more.html

Flying Needlelace

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Part two Detached Needlelace

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Detached Needlelace

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Fred and a team from Trinity church are on a long trek to Haiti. Airport sanfu caused a delay and they are waiting in Miami until 8am Sunday to get a plane to Port au Prince. For Fred it's been and longer trip that started with a motorcycle ride , a ferry ride and a car ride to the Seattle airport, so add three hours.

Quote of the Day

"“It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go.” - Jim Rohn

Gather Your Armies!

Dennis Prager Q & A At University of Denver

" In God is our trust"

"O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause. it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!"

Francis Scott Key

Handmade cards & Lavender filled gift bags

The path from sewing and quilting gave way naturally to scrap-booking and card-making. So long as I can incorporate beautiful prints and textures from fabrics into this new to me world of paper crafts I'm a happy camper.

Known contamination of vaccine for rotavirus

"For those of you who are not familiar with this virus, the rotavirus is the leading cause of diarrhea in infants, not only in the United States but in the developing world. A number of trials have shown that this vaccine has been useful in reducing the death rate from rotaviral infection in the developing world, and that’s the key." See Dr. Mercola's article here.

Please take a few minutes to read and understand the entire issue before subjecting your child to possibly a more deadly disease than diarrhea can be.

Be wise, ask your doctor for the package insert and read all the indications and contra-indications before you vaccinate.

Praying through Psalm 6 (VanOene)

Chide America, O Lord no longer,
Nor chasten her in anger.
In Mercy hear her groans,
O Lord do see her languish,
Heal Thou her bitter anguish,
For troubled are her bones.

Her soul is troubled greater’
O hasten Thou to aid her.
Why dost Thou tarry, Lord?
Turn back and show Thy favor;
Her in thy love deliver,
According to Thy Word!

How can the dead adore Thee,
Or bring their thanks before Thee?
Or Praise Thy Holy name?
She’s weary with her moaning
Worn out with constant groaning
And overcome with shame.

All night instead of sleeping,
She drenches her couch with weeping,
With grief her eyes grow weak.
Since foes with hate surround her
And without ceasing hound her
Her ruin they all seek.

Depart from her transgressors,
Flee now, all you oppressors:
The Lord did heed her cry!
He heard her supplication,
Her pleas for consolation
And with His help is nigh.

The Lord heard when she pleaded
And her appeals He heeded
Her foes shall be ashamed,
For sudden fear shall shake them
And panic overtake them
Their doom has He proclaimed.

Old Books

"You can find all the new ideas in the old books; only there you will find them balanced, kept in their place, and sometimes contradicted and overcome by other and better ideas. The great writers did not neglect a fad because they had not thought of it, but because they had thought of it and of all the answers to it as well. " G. K. Chesterton