Showing posts with label pin cushions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pin cushions. Show all posts

Tea on Tuesday





Teatime Treats was the title of a full page Red Rose Tea ad in this month's Yankee magazine.

It spoke of matching the right cookie or treat with the kind of tea in your cup. Kind of like- what wine goes with what food!!!

According to Red Rose, their black tea is very strong, so to pair it with a bland biscuit, would be doing the tea a disservice. Red Rose recommends a sweet cookie, like the recipe below: Maple Brown Butter Cookies. They also recommend currant scones with raspberry jam, if you are having English Breakfast tea, and a sweet honey cake with a hot cup of Earl Grey. Food for thought, so to speak.....!!!

Red Rose Tea's Maple Brown Butter Cookies:

1/4 C unsalted butter
2 1/4 C flour
1/2 tspn baking powder
1/2 tspn ground cinnamon
1/4 tspn ground ginger
1/4 tspn baking soda
1/4 tspn salt
6 tablespoons sugar
1/2 C + 2 tspns maple syrup
2 large egg whites, divided into separate bowls
1 tablespoon water
1/3 C finely chopped almonds, walnuts, or pecans
2 tablespoons sugar

In small saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Cook, stirring occasionally, until milk solids separate and sink, and butter becomes deep amber in color. Transfer to bowl to cool to room temp, then refrigerate.

In medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, baking soda, and salt.

With standing mixer, combine sugar and butter, and beat about 2 min. Add maple syrup and 1 egg white. On low speed, add flour mixture just until blended. Divide dough in half, cover in plastic, and refrigerate for 1 hour, or up to 3 days (or freeze up to 2 months).
Heat oven to 350 degrees.

On lightly floured surface, roll out dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Using a decorative cutter, cut out the cookies and place on parchment or Silpat lined baking sheet. Beat remaining egg white with with water. Brush tops of cookies with egg mixture. Sprinkle with nuts and sugar.

Bake 10-12 minutes. Remove from pan and cool on wire racks.


For some news on the artsy front:

The DC Big Flea was this past weekend - and Jean went (and again, I didn't!!!). She has a favorite booth - and you have to see the pin cushions these gals make!!!! Check her post to see the ones she got and there is a link to the website for these little treasures!! I LOVE the Velveteen Rabbit one!!! Very clever idea with the carrot!!!

These gave me some ideas for some new ones of my own!!! As I sit here warming my hands around my mug, and sipping on my home grown sage tea, I am sketching out some new ideas..............

Hearts Fall Out...................


I just went to pick up the mail and had lots of little b'day cards- woohoo!!!! There was a fat little envelope with an unfamiliar return address.
It was from Joanne at Pieceful Quilting.
I had won a giveway on her blog - and the prize was a crocheted heart pin cushion. Now, this was a perfect prize - 'cause I collect vintage heart pin cushions (among other things - LOL)
I opened the envelope and hearts fell out!!!! Not only was the delicate little crocheted heart there, but an adorable angel made out of a vintage hankie and blanket stitched hearts, and, if that wasn't enough - a wool felt strawberry needle keeper. Also kind of heart shaped!!

Thank you so much, Joanne - the timing was perfect - and these will go down in my studio and the angel will hang above my sewing machine!!

Follow Me, Follow Me to a Summer Giveaway!!!


Woohoo!! I just got another follower!!
If I can get to 40 followers, I would be a happy camper!! That's only 11 more!!
When I get to 40, I will have a giveaway of one of my apple pin cushions, and something tea related.
So, spread the word, leave a comment, and become a follower!!!!


Pin Cushion Swap

Check out this blog for a cool pin cushion swap - http://creatingbythelake.blogspot.com/2009/05/pincushions-for-my-first-swap.html

I just signed on - I love making pin cushions and one can never have enough of them, I say!!!!

Coming soon - a post with more pix of felted wool goodies to tempt you into signing up for my woolie round robin!! I just KNOW you'll want to participate!!!

Now, it off to the field to help the husband plant some trees.......................

I'm So Excited......





...every day I look and find a new 'follower'!! See, bribery DOES work!!! LOL
Only 5 more days til the drawing - make sure you become a follower and leave a comment on the previous post to enter!!!
~~~~~~~
I was cleaning out some boxes, and working on the never ending organization of my studio, and came across this make-do pin cushion I made a few years ago.

It is hand dyed wool,, reversible, with little pockets that hold spools of thread. The spools are all vintage wooden with still useable thread. If all the spools had been the same size, the 'flower' shape would have been a little better. But, those were all I had at the time!

The wool 'flower' sits on top of a vintage sherbert glass, that is filled with vintage buttons. But it would be great storage for needles,seam rippers, etc.



Challenges

There are always challenges in life. I prefer the ones of the artistic variety- and love finding the challenge of the week on different blogs. The big challenge for me is finding the time to finish all these little things I start!!! Being of distracted mind, I flit from one thing to another, leaving a trail of incompletes in my path!

The BIG challenge for the past 2 weeks, for me, has bee
n getting over bronchitis! I dread the end of winter, because just when I think I have escaped the cold or the flu- my husband comes home with something!!! For me, it always is bronchitis, and I have to make sure it doesn't turn into pneumonia.

So, having spent the better part of last week sitting on the couch, sewing, reading and watching mindless tv, I managed to finish a few projects, and dig up ones long forgotten!!!
I am working on a painted rock - a challenge from Awfully Big Art Adventure. I have been participating in The Altered Page's Disintegration Project. I really need to go out and take pix of it's progress - Seth is posting pix on his blog. There are over 75
participants worldwide in the Disintegration!! How cool!!!It is always interesting to see others' interpretations!

My computer has been suffering from' satellite outage' problem
s the past few days- keeping me from posting pictures- or doing much of anything online.
For this brief moment in time - it appears the clouds have cleared and I am connected to the satellite- so I will post a picture or two of what I've been working on, then zoom over to Etsy and see if I can put up the listings before the computer dies again!!





This above is a quilt I started years ago, after reading an article about an artist in NY who was creating these from old kimonos. They are just handstitched together, and I don't think his even had backs. I have to hunt for the article! This one is old silks and kimono pieces with some modern repros of kimono prints.

Below are a group of 'make-do' pin cushions I am making. They will be in my Etsy shoppe as soon as the computer allows!!! They range from felted wool applique, to vintage crochet, feedsacks, and more. Some are on top of vintage jars, footed bowls, and molds. Each one different and one of a kind!! I love making them - I never know how they are going to turn out- it's always a surprise!





Spreading Myself Thin.....




......is what it feels like when I am trying to manage 2 blogs, a Facebook page, Myspace, an Etsy shoppe, and actual shop, and an occasional eBay listing!!!! Yikes, what have I gotten myself into!!

But , I couldn't live if I couldn't get my words on 'paper', so I'll do my best to keep up!


My household is fighting bronchitis - I have an appointment later today to get some meds before I end up with walking pneumonia! Yesterday, I took it easy and managed to get a little sewing in- I have some cute little pincushions that will be in the Etsy store in the next day or so.
In my stash, I have a bunch of neat old flour /feed sack fabrics, that really needed to be recreated. They go perfectly with these old zinc canning jar lids.
It was too cold in the studio to sit at the sewing machine (w/o the woodstove lit- brrr!), so I plopped in front of the tv and handstitched them all. More would have been done, if I had used the machine, but oh, well!

The other picture is one of my fabulous thrift store finds- a 1930's-40's Dresden Plate quilt top. All the vintage fabrics, some feedsack, are pieced into Dresde
n Plates and then were appliqued on a whole piece of fabric. I'm looking for the perfect backing, then will send this quilt top out to be machine quilted. Can't wait!!!