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 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!

New lamb!

Just born this morning .

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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