Sewing Kit - Felt Craft

I love felt embroidery, and I do not know why I don't do more of it.  So simple!  I didn't have a pattern for this, I saw one in a catalog (or website?  I can't remember which) from Hopechest Legacy.  My daughter and I were working through her Needlework Skills Book 1 together at the time, and this looked like a simple additional project.  It was.  :-)

Sadly the Hopechest Legacy site has pretty much closed down, we love the books and patterns we have bought from them, and there are still a few good freebies on the site. http://www.hopechestlegacy.com/index.php?page=free-resources (Freebies are listed on the red sidebar to the left)

The inside pockets hold a pencil, scissors, embroidery floss, needles are stored under the flap on the top right, the heart shaped pocket holds a thimble and my needle threader, and the center bottom is a stuffed pincushion full of pins.  

It was such an easy project that my 12 year old daughter made herself one at the same time.  

   
The Hope Chest Legacy Website is gone, but the books are still available on Amazon:
 https://amzn.to/2QBQFP6

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An Index Of My Craft Related Posts
https://fieldsofhether.blogspot.com/p/crafts.html

Peanut Butter Eggs


Our teen age daughter makes hundreds of these each year.  She pays her own way to summer camp by selling them. :-)

2 cups 10x sugar
1 cup Jiff Peanut Butter
1/4 cup butter
1 T milk
melting chocolate


Soften the butter, combine all ingredients
     (we use the kitchen-aid to cream the ingredients together)
Form into egg shapes
Pop in the freezer for about 30 minutes to an hour
Dip in chocolate

Freezing them first helps so much when coating them in chocolate.  Otherwise this can get very messy.  :-)


I get the wafers at Ac Moore.  They go on sale for $1.77 a bag, and when they do, I stock up.  do not like the chocolate wafers from Michaels - they are too waxy, in my opinion.

You can melt the chocolate in the microwave - just make sure the bowl and spoon are COMPLETELY dry.  One speck of water can make chocolate seize.

We don't have a microwave here (no big health reason, I just got tired of them dying, and we don't really use it..  a counter top convection oven was under $40 and works well for reheating food)


I have a melting pan similar to this one. I paid under $20- check Michaels or JoAnns and use a coupon for a good deal on one.  If you melt a lot of chocolate (we make a LOT of peanut butter eggs each year) it's well worth the investment.

To coat the eggs, drop them in one at a time, then lift out with a fork, shaking it back and forth gently to even out the chocolate and remove the excess.  Then place on wax paper, or parchment paper, to dry.




The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel

The Clan of the Cave Bear (Earth's Children, #1)The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel


My rating: 2 of 5 stars




I had for some reason believed this was some sort of classic, and appropriate for our younger teens reading lists. I'm glad I read if first- the story line is good, but it is not a classic, and the rape scenes are unnecessarily detailed, even if the details about sex are kept simple. Those passages, in my opinion, ruin the book and make it one I would not recommend.


After finishing this book I was curious about the fates of the charactars, the story line is good... but after reading a quick summary of the other books in the series, it appears sex continues to be a strong theme shared in detail too often.


View all my reviews

Rigatoni Casserole

This is such a simple "recipe" (I rarely measure, so my recipes tend not to be what most think of as a recipe.)


Cooked rigatoni ( I used 4 boxes)

Spagetti sauce ( I used 2 large jars)

Alfredo sauce ( I used about half a gallon of it- I make my own.  Our milk is fresh from the dairy, and includes a good bit of cream in it)

Mushrooms, peppers, onions, and cooked hot sausage, optional (saute the onions, peppers, and mushrooms first)

Mix, bake.  Optional- top with cheese before baking.

I made 3 heaping full 9x13 pans...  i think one small jar of alfredo sauce from the pasta sauce aisle, mixed with one equally sized jar of spaghetti sauce, and one box of pasta, would nicely fill one 9x13 pan.

This freezes well!  I first learned the recipe at an Apples Of Gold meeting, where the woman teaching us had learned it from a woman in our church who brought it to her after a funeral.  It's a great meal to keep in the freezer and pull out to warm up and take to someone.

Chicken Salad Club Sandwiches

(there was also a bowl of cubed cheese, one of hard boiled eggs, and one of yogurt, to go with this meal today)

A few weeks back Dh and I had lunch at a little dive in Sunbury PA.  We had an AWESOME chicken salad club sandwich...  and I knew it would be simple to replicate here at home.  The ones there had two layers, but I made them just one layer here..  it would be simple enough to add another piece of bread in the middle.

Chicken Salad - 
Cut up chicken (I use just white meat)
diced apple
diced purple onion
diced hard boiled egg
shredded carrot
mayo (I make my own, but a jar works too)
mustard
a little lemon juice
a little dill, salt, pepper, and powdered garlic

Then toast the bread (to keep this much bread warm, I turned my oven on low and put the bread in the oven as soon as it came out of the toaster.

Place a strip of bacon (cut in half, but use both pieces) on the toast
Top with a lettuce leaf (I use romaine)
top with chicken salad, and another piece of toast

HUGE hit - this will be a common meal this summer I think!

A case of Scott's Liquid Gold


I buy old furniture.  Not restored antiques - beat up old furniture.  I like it.  I don't want to paint most of it, I like the look of wood.  Most of my furniture it purchased at the Beaver Run Consignment Sale - an Amish run auction to benefit their school.  (Although with what they must make off that auction, they could have a huge air conditioned building with full time paid staff..  not just the outside toilets and simple one room school they have..) 

I furnished my entire dining room - china cabinet, dry sink, buffet, two wing chairs, two end tables, a piano, and a dining room table with 8 chairs - for $100.  THAT kind of old furniture. Normally I bring it home, and use Scott's liquid gold on it, the wonder spray that makes scratched, dinged, dried out, furniture look...  rustic, but clean and nice.  

Last week I ran out of Scott's.  I stopped at our grocery store where I usually buy it - there;s no longer even a space on the shelf for it.  I tried Big Lots, where I sometimes find it, no luck.  Tried target - No Scott's.

Uh oh!  So in desperation I bought Old English in a spray bottle.   My living room looks clean..  but shiny.  It's oily, and the overspray on my walls worried me..  I'm not sure it will just dry up, and if it does't, my walls look like I was cooking with oil in front of them, and it splattered.  Not pretty.  I had to use too much of it - the spray was..  too much.  it did a great job getting in all the detailed nooks and crannies of my furniture, but to do so meant I used half a bottle just in my dining room.  And everything looks shiny - like a high gloss version of Scott's.  I think I'd like to use this once in awhile, IF it dries nicely, but for weekly polishing, it's way too much.

I need my scott's liquid gold!!  I went to the website today, and they do still make it.
  I think I'm going to order a case.  :-)
http://www.scottsliquidgold.com/scotts-liquid-gold/about.html
Update - 8 years later, you can just order it on amazon.
https://amzn.to/2Z7hvRN

Check out the great how to clean videos along the right hand side of the site above - how to clean antique mirrors, how to clean wood drawers, how to clean an antique sewing machine...

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https://fieldsofhether.blogspot.com/p/diary-of-housewife.html

Chicken Marsala


This looked so pretty in my big baking pan right out of the oven..  but we dug in before I got a picture.  I put these two extra pieces on a plate for the photo, and it doesn't look nearly as good...  but trust me, it tastes good!   This is one of my favorite meals.  This is also one of those times where I adapt a "regular" recipe to feed a family of 6, with 4 teenagers.  When the recipe says "return chicken to the pan" I know I'm in trouble - to cook enough chicken for all of us in one pan is usually not feasible.  I'd need a bigger pan.  :-)

At the bottom of this post is Emeril's recipe, which is sort of what I used as my guideline, and has exact measurements, for those of you who cook with measuring cups.  I rarely measure - I cook 3 meals a day, every day, for this crew..  I can pretty much guess amounts.  For most things. I did measure out the wine and chicken broth, roughly, for this dish.  Well, I poured the bottle of marsala wine into a measuring cup, figured there was only 3/4 of a cup, roughly left in the bottle, then used the entire bottle.  That's my idea of measuring.

Heather's Chicken Marsala
Pound chicken thin
Add salt, pepper, thyme, oregano, and garlic powder to flour
dredge chicken in flour
fry chicken lightly in very little oil (does not have to be cooked through)
Remove chicken to big baking dish
Add a little butter to the pan (it was sort of dry)  
Cook mushrooms (add a little wine if pan is still to dry)
Remove mushrooms with a slotted spoon, spooking over chicken
add Marsala wine (I used roughly 3 cups for 9 chicken breast halves)
simmer the wine until it is reduced, or thickened
Add 2 cups of chicken broth - I mixed a little of the leftover flour in to make more of a gravy
When thickened, pour sauce over the chicken
Put in the oven at 350 for about 30 minutes


Emeril's Chicken Marsala

Ingredients
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon Essence, recipe follows
2 (6 to 8-ounce) boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut in halves and pounded thin
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 tablespoons butter
3 cups sliced mushrooms (cremini, oyster, shiitake)
3/4 cup Marsala
1 cup chicken stock
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Chopped chives, for garnish

Directions
In a shallow bowl or plate combine the flour and Essence and stir to combine thoroughly. Quickly dredge the chicken breast halves in the seasoned flour mixture, shaking to remove any excess flour.

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until very hot but not smoking. Add 1 tablespoon of the butter and cook the chicken breasts until golden brown on both sides, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate and set aside.
 Add 1 tablespoon of the remaining butter to the pan and add the mushrooms. Cook, stirring frequently, until mushrooms are golden brown around the edges and have given off their liquid.
Add the Marsala wine and bring to a boil, scraping to remove any browned bits from the bottom of the pan.
 When the wine has reduced by half, add the chicken stock and cook for 3 minutes, or until the sauce has thickened slightly. Lower the heat to medium and return the chicken breasts to the pan and continue to cook until they are cooked through and the sauce has thickened, about 5 to 6 minutes.
Swirl in the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter, add salt and pepper, to taste. Garnish with chopped chives and serve immediately.

A Few Of My Favorite Soap Making Resources

A Few Of My Favorite Soapmaking Resources & Supplies

Disclaimer - You should never, ever make soap until you have researched it and know what you are doing.  As much as I love to "wing it" - soap making it not a wing it activity.  



Basic Resources:

The formula for Crisco has changed since the early 2000s. It now incorporates a fair amount of hydrogenated palm oil, which is good for making soap. If you're using Crisco, be sure to know what kind you are using and and adjust your lye calculator accordingly. Most lye calculators have a setting for "old Crisco" and "new Crisco." If your label lists "hydrogenated palm oil" as one of the ingredients, use the "new Crisco" setting.

Soap Making Recipes:

This is the soap making book I started with.
Great, simple, recipes, with lots of herb additives.
It has a great format, and is easy to follow.

Simple & Natural Soap Making by Jan Berry is my current favorite soap making book.
My favorite book does change frequently - but this is a nice balance between the simple book above, and the very complex book below.  And it's pretty.  :-)
https://amzn.to/3t8Wrih

The other soap making book on my shelves.
This one is not as pretty as the Sandy Maine Book, it's more, well, like a BOOK than a magazine.  But it is SO full of great information, my copy  is marked with bunches of sticky notes. https://amzn.to/2QLfybp


Bramble Berry Project Ideas (Formerly The Soap Queen)
Bramble Berry is a supply site, and to inspire you to purchase their products, they offer great projects!
https://www.brambleberry.com/


Soap Making Supplies:


Soap Mold & Cutter
https://amzn.to/37vMQ4U
I have a lot of wooden molds, which I either grease with crisco or line with wax paper before using.  But silicone really is sooooo nice when making soap!
And these cutters are great!


You can make soap without an immersion blender.  If you do not mind stirring really hard for HOURS.  :-)
Seriously, this makes it so much faster and easier!
https://amzn.to/2FhEX7i

An accurate scale is an absolute essential.
Make sure it can measure in both ounces and grams
This is not the one I use, mine is a 20 year old postal scale - but this one looks nice, and is reasonably priced.
https://amzn.to/2QCwjFA


Lye is getting harder and harder to find - our grocery stores no longer carry it.
I can still find it at lowes, by the drain cleaners
Just be sure it is 100% lye - and nothing else added.
Thankfully, there is also Amazon Prime.
https://amzn.to/2FbwnXE





A nice selection of colors to start with - 
https://amzn.to/39B6jTx


I used to buy dried lavender at the health food store, to add to my soaps - but it's cheaper to buy it online now.  Here's an assortment of additives - 
https://amzn.to/2ZMmwku



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January Baby Goats

We had goats loose last fall.  We keep the billies separate from the girls until November, so we plan for March babies.  This year...  looks like we are going to have quite a few early births.

Yesterday twin girls, to one of my best moms.  They are doing great -
 They are up, running around, and adorable in the snow today.  (we lined the inside of this shelter with hay bales yesterday, knowing the temps would drop, and it would be windy, last night.  It was 2 degrees when I got up this morning)

Then this morning - 
This little girl is more of a concern for us.  Some of our Boers are born with their front legs not working well right away.  Nutradrench takes care of the problem in a day or two.  This one was born with this, in the snow, and her mom is skittish.  Doesn't seem as interested in standing still for the baby to nurse.  We'll have to watch carefully to make sure she is eating.  We put a calf shelter in the pasture and moved the baby in there so she's separate from the others and less likely to get trampled.  

Our Sheep

 I either need to find a local shearer, or learn to shear, this year!
Daughter with Mom.  Lamb on the left was born last spring.  Mom is a Jacobs, Father was a Suffolk
All three of our sheep- our new ram is a Jacobs too.

Recipe - Anniversary Chicken

Boneless chicken breasts marinated in Teriyaki sauce, 
then topped with ranch dressing, bacon, and thick slices of cheese

  • Boneless Chicken
  • Teriyaki Sauce
  • Ranch Dressing
  • Cheese (Cheddar was on the original recipe, but I often use colby jack)
  • Bacon or bacon bits
Marinate the chicken in teriyaki sauce.

Place in a baking pan, top with a tsp or so of ranch dressing, cheese, and bacon or bacon bits. (Maple smoked bacon from Sam's club is fabulous on this)  Thinly sliced green onions on top are optional too.

Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through and cheese is bubbly on top.

It's a weird combination of ingredients, but trust me - it's good!  A favorite here.  This is also a great meal to make a lot of in advance, flash freeze, and cook later.

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