Let it snow

I live on the Sunshine Coast located on the Southwest Coast of British Columbia. We don't often see the mercury dip to below 0 Celsius nor do we often see snow. But, when the snow does apprear it quickly turns to rain because we seldom stay cold enough once the snow clouds move in. This time, thanks to an Arctic flow, we are getting lots of snow and it's sticking around, in fact lower temperatures are forecasted for the rest of the week. The forecast also calls for sun on Friday and Saturday and that means brilliant clear days with the sun shimmering on the snow, can't wait, in the meantime, I'm enjoying the snow.

Margaret

Riches to rags

What would you say your husband's dress style is? Well my husbands is country chic, t-shirts, jeans, and flannel shirts (for dress up days). But wait for it, the t-shirts are free, thanks in part to beer company give-aways and to my youngest son's basketball tournaments, from 10 years ago . He wears them to near death but I'm still able to get further use from them.

So thanks to Budweiser and high school basketball, I made some rags and tomato ties for next year's crop.

Tea Towels

A little while ago I purchased three cotton tea towels from my local fabric store. It's a very small store that carries quilting fabric, embroidery supplies and yarn. I'm really thrilled on how my designs turned out but I'm not sure how well the embroidered designs will hold up wash after wash so I'm going to iron self adhesive interfacing to the back. My hope is that the little threads on the back of the design will stick to the interfacing and not fray or come undone. If anyone out there has any pointers on this I would love to hear from you.
I have lots of design ideas but I'll have to find a good online supplier because $5.00CAD per tea towel is much to expensive if I plan to sell them. Again if anyone out there has any suggested online stores I can buy from please let me know. They must be located in Canada or the USA.

Margaret

Pecan and Raisin Bars - second baking batch

I finished my second batch of Christmas baking. Pecan and Raisin bars, delicious! The recipe can be found on the Robin Hood Flour website. You will notice the recipe calls for dried cranberries which I didn't have on hand so I substituted raisins. These taste just like butter tarts but without the fuss of pastry.

Happy baking!

Margaret

Christmas baking - first batch

I have always baked for Christmas but more often than not I mess it all up, you see I'm not a very good baker. I swore to myself, as I do every Christmas, that I will stick with the tried and true, I make notes on my recipes, I file my recipes, I try to find my recipes and guess what..each Christmas my recipes are lost to me. So this year I'm starting with a clean slate. I have a binder that holds my recipes and they are stored in my computer as well. Fingers crossed this will work. I also decided that slow and easy is the way to go, no more "Saturday is baking day" and try to bake 12 doz different types of cookies. Yesterday I baked my first cookie, thumbprint cookies, filled with my homemade cherry jam. The recipe is on the Robin Hood flour website. These cookies are fabulous, Art polished off 1/2 dozen already but they are now safely hidden in the freezer.

Give Chrismas baking a try, it will soon become a family tradition.

Margaret

Christmas crafts

I've now completed two advent calenders. The first one was for my nephew Finley, 1 1/2 yrs and so very cute. The second is for my two grandsons Ethan 4yrs and John Daniel 4 months. They will be able to use it next Christmas, they are visiting family this Christmas.
These little calenders are really cute and not just for kids, you can fill them with special notes, adult liquor filled chocolates, promise notes, little gifts like tea candles, recipes, perfume sachets, dainty or not so dainty hankies, sky is the limit.

My next project is embroidering a tea towel which is a gift for my mother-in-law. It's hard to tell what this is but it's a sprig of olives.