Hornbook Threadkeeps

Wanted to get a quick photo up of our newest items - hornbook thread keepers! They're the perfect size to tuck in your project bag and have lots of space to add a stitched piece. We have some charts in the works to fit these, and those will be polished up and available soon! In the meantime, these are available through Attic Needlework, or ask for them at your local shop! Happy Stitching!

Lots of new things!

We've been busy here and have lots of new things to share with you!

We have been naming each of our frame styles after a town or place that has some significance in American history, and our most recent addition is Saratoga. The frame is available in any size, with or without the chain. The molding itself is about 1 inch wide. We've chosen the primitive finish for these two chain-frames. Both of these have the red color peeking through, but the frame is equally gorgeous in other colors. The first shows off one of Carriage House Designs 'Tavern Signs' lovingly and beautifully stitched by Jean Lea. We think it's perfect!

The next design is a Priscilla's Pocket original. While researching Saratoga, we learned about the Battle of Saratoga, which was a major turning point in the American Revolutionary War. It was here that General John Burgoyne and the British forces were surrounded and defeated in a month long series of events highlighted by two battles in September and October 1777. Word of Burgoyne's defeat reached Benjamin Franklin in Versailles in December, and two days later, King Louis XVI assented to negotiations for an alliance. France declared war on Britain one month later. In honor of this critical point in our history, we decided to graph the quilt pattern, 'Burgoyne Surrounded' to accompany our Saratoga frame. We are in the process of learning the printing and production process and as soon as we do, it will be released for sale.

Next is a brand new graining style, we've got a couple of name ideas for this one, but so far Carriage Tracks is winning out. It's shown here framing Lizzie Kate's Time for God, again stitched beautifully by Jean Lea in Belle Soie silks and on Lakeside Linen. This is such a darling design, and the frame complements it beautifully, don't you think?

For Christmas, we framed this photo for my brother-in-law, who is the ultimate Chicago Cubs fan: He loves it! It's fun to see how the grains look on richer, brighter colors, and can really show off the artwork or photo.

Closing today with a little view of our Thanksgiving and Christmas this past year, from making pancakes, to tree decorating, to riding the Komodo Dragon (statue!) at the Phoenix Zoo. Lots of fun was had by all!

Thanks for visiting!

Cookies with Nana!

Tommy and Nana baked Ginger Snap cookies together yesterday. The house smelled wonderful and we wanted to share this delicious recipe with you! These cookies are crisp on the outside, a bit chewy in the very center, and absolutely beautiful rolled in sparkly sugar. They are a family favorite during the holidays and are surprisingly easy to make. (And very simple and fun for children to help with!)

First, Nana made the cookie dough.

Cream the following ingredients until fluffy:

¾ cup shortening

1 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup dark molasses

1 egg

Sift the following ingredients together and slowly add to the wet mixture:

2 ¼ cups flour

2 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

1 ¼ tsp. ground ginger

1 ¼ tsp. ground cinnamon

¾ tsp. cloves

Once the dough is mixed, form into balls. You can make these any size you'd like, but you may need to adjust the baking time a bit so small cookies don't overcook, and large ones are done. The baking time below is for a tablespoon sized ball.

Tommy helped Nana form the mixture into balls, but he wasn't sure he liked having sticky dough on his hands.

Roll each ball in sugar. We used a large crystal sparkly sugar for this batch, but the cookies are very festive with red or green decorator sugar, and just as tasty with regular table sugar. Arrange the sugar covered balls on a baking sheet and bake at 375°F for 12 minutes. Allow to cool on the baking sheet for a minute to firm up, and then remove to a cooling rack to cool.

I hope you'll give these delicious cookies a try and let us know how you liked them!

Slow Cooker Taco Filling

This is the second of the 'recipe repeats'. I do hope you'll enjoy it!

Over the past few months, I've been doing a lot of cooking. Found a half pork roast in the freezer that needed to be used up, so I decided to make slow-cooker taco (or burrito, enchilada - you get the picture) filling. This is the easiest recipe yet, and I tried it the next week with chicken breasts and it was great like that too. Next is to try beef - might try a chuck roast if it goes on sale soon. Otherwise any good roasting type of meat would work.

Approx. 2 lb. meat ( I cut the loin into 1 inch slices so I could brown it a bit for the extra flavor. Chicken just gets thrown in as is. I think I'll brown the beef in slices, makes it easier to break apart later)

2 cans petite diced tomatoes with green chiles - I use the original Ro-Tel, but I know there are other brands out there too.

1/2 - 1 tsp chili powder (amount depends on how spicy you like it - my folks are good with 1/2 tsp - I could go a bit hotter. I used Chili 3000 from Penzeys)

1 medium onion, chopped.

That's it! Just mix it all together in the slow-cooker, and leave it alone. I start my cooker on High to get it going, and then turn it down to Low for the rest of the day. Follow the instructions for your cooker .
When the meat has cooked for several hours - usually 5 or more, break it up into shreds with a wooden spoon. If it seems a bit too watery, you can leave the lid open a crack to dry it out.

Serve as tacos with cheese, sour cream, tomatoes, lettuce, etc. Also especially yummy atop a salad, or stuffed into enchiladas. You can use it anywhere you'd use taco meat.

This is really easy and yummy in anything - I think I'm going to try beef soon and try to make an enchil-lasagna with it...

Enjoy!

Perfect Guacamole

I am revisiting a couple of recipe posts from my personal blog, A Little Grey Hare, so that I can share them with you. The first one is a delicious guacamole recipe I worked to perfect over last autumn. It's delicious with chips, or as a spread. I hope you'll try it and enjoy it!

I have tried a bunch of guacamole recipes since I moved here to AZ - it amazes me that some of them call for things like mayo (which I can't eat anyway - but why would you add something that's just fat and eggs to an already creamy, healthy fat?) I played around with one recipe that I found and tweaked it to not be too garlicky (for Mom and Dad) with a touch of heat (for me) I had some Penzey's ground chipotle in the fridge and no fresh peppers, and actually, I like the slightly smoky heat better!

Hope you try it and also that you enjoy!

3 ripe avocados, peeled
2 tbsp lime juice
1 tsp salt
1 medium garlic clove - minced or crushed
1/2 cup diced onion (I used yellow, but red is really pretty)
scant 1/8 tsp ground chipotle (depending on how much heat you like)
1 roma tomato - 1/4 inch dice

Using a pastry blender (this works REALLY well!) or a fork, mash two on the avocados with the lime juice, salt, and chipotle powder until mostly smooth. Stir in the onion and garlic. Cut the other avocado into 1/4 to 1/2 inch pieces and add, along with the tomato. Fold in until mixed together, but preserving the chunkiness.
this is good right away, but the flavors blend if you make a bit ahead an store in the fridge - to keep it from darkening, I place in a small plastic storage container, smooth the top, and press a piece of plastic wrap right onto the top, sealing out the air. Each time you spoon some out, smooth it and recover with the plastic. It actually will stay green for a couple of days this way!

I love this with black bean tortilla chips!

Enjoy!

Hornbooks

Hornbooks originated in England in the mid 1400's. In children's education, they were used as primers for study. Printed paper or parchment was attached to a paddle-shaped piece of wood. A thin sheet of horn, made by soaking animal horn in cold water to remove it from the bone, and then boiling to soften, was attached to the board using tacks, or a thin strip of metal that was tacked around the edge. The horn served to protect the paper from grubby fingers and wear. Usually a hornbook was printed with the letters of the alphabet, the vowels in a line, and the vowel combinations with the consonants in a tabular form. The Trinitarian formula - "in the name of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" and the Lord's Prayer were commonly found following the letters. Occasionally, the arabic numerals appeared as well.

On English hornbooks, a cross appeared before the first row of letters, this was called 'Christ's Cross' and came to be known as the 'criss-cross.' A pupil was expected to cross himself before beginning the lesson. American hornbooks generally lacked the cross, as the Puritans objected to the use of the symbol of the cross.

Often, a hornbook had a hole in the handle for a cord so that the student could wear the book around their neck or attached to a belt. Hornbooks were sturdy, and there is evidence that they were used as bats when playing.

Our newest frame is a hornbook frame - it is finished in a primitive, worn-paint finish. This example has a golden yellow undercoat, but could be done in any color undercoat to complement your work. We have a few ideas that we'll be working up soon for a sampler for this frame as well, and we hope to have one finished and available soon.

New colors and grains

Sometimes we have some extra molding and decide to make it into a frame. When this happens, we use the frame to practice new graining designs or use a new color we've been wanting to try. The first two frames on the page are examples of this. The first is painted in a new color for us, 'Nantucket', and the graining style is based on one by Primitive Traditions' Cathy Campbell. We're tentatively calling it 'Peacock', because that's the first thing that popped into our minds when we saw it on this color, but that name may change before we make it official.

Many of our early frame designs are based on Cathy's, which unfortunately became unavailable since she closed her framing business to focus on designing. We've also been working hard to develop new styles and grains that are unique to us.

The following frame is a new grain that we're calling 'Burl' and the color is 'Mistletoe'. It's beautiful in this color, and I'm excited to try the grain on a more 'natural' looking color to see how it turns out. One of my favorite things is to try to reproduce the look of natural woods, and this burled look, as well as the birdseye grain have quickly become favorites.

It's amazing that such a simple technique allows such varied and lovely results, and we find that the grains vary immensely just between the two of us. Even when Mom and I do the same technique, the grain looks slightly different, making each frame truly unique and original. I think that is the thing I love most about false-graining. I'm starting to branch out into graining some other items too, but since some of these are intended as Christmas presents, I can't share the photos with you until after the holidays!

The next frame is one we've had for a while, but I haven't had a good photo of it until now. It is also based on one from Primitive Traditions. This grain is 'Swirl'.

Lastly, we're always showcasing needlework in our frames, but I wanted to show how nicely they work on other items. The following is an example, using the 'Peacock' grained frame above with a school photo of my son. Unfortunately, there is a bit of a glare on the photo (darned glossy finishes) but I think it gives a good idea of how well these frames work on other types of items. Other ideas might be to frame a wedding invitation, ketubah, diploma, or other cherished item.

We're getting geared up for the holiday season, and are planning a few surprises along the way. Expect a few recipes from our files, a history lesson with a new frame, and perhaps a new cross-stitch design or two.

Blessings to you and yours -