Tea & Embroidery: Tea, Embroidery & Danish Puff! 6/26/2014

My newest project: A pillow case with a border of leaves and flowers.

 I originally started with the flower being pink.  I have since changed it to yellow, more Chrysanthemum or Marigold like.

Here is the updated color palette!

My new apple blossom tea cup, with my apple blossom tea pot.  Also a bowl of black cherries.

 This morning's culinary creation: Danish Puff! YUMMY!

 Tea and Danish Puff with embroidery.  What a great way to spend my day off.

Want a piece?

Enjoying some quiet time on my day off.  A little embroidery, a little baking.  A little later I plan on attempting another baking extravaganza.  Perhaps some scones will follow yet today...

Tea & Embroidery: Let's Get Up To Date! 6/26/2014

A pillow case, being embroidered for my Niece for her birthday.

The second pillow case I embroidered for my Niece for her birthday.

A better view of the second pillow case's design.

Tea and Embroidery: Where It All Began 6/26/2014

This blog is going to follow my embroidery projects as well as photographing my collection of tea cups and tea pots and various tea cakes, scones, etc...

I started playing with embroidery last fall.  It all began with a set of cape patterns that I purchased around Halloween last year.  But no, I have to go further back than that.  I thoroughly enjoy costuming, creating characters, etc.

Early last fall I was in the office of the camp where I work and one of the ladies turned to me and said, "Lois, you know what you should do?"

Ummm.... No, but I bet you are going to tell me.  She went on to say that I should do a photo shoot in the woods this last winter wearing a red cape.  The contrast of the red against the snow.

I said to her, "But Jean, I don't have a red cape......yet...." And that started it all.

I had decided that I wanted to embroider a cape (which I have yet to do) for my niece, but somehow it turned into embroidering on the red cape that I had just made.  And so, I hope that you enjoy following along with my adventures.  And that I can inspire you to pick up a camera, a needle and thread or a spatula and whisk and get out there and create something!

After some deliberation...

After a good deal of deliberation, I have decided to combine this blog with my other Blog, Tea And Embroidery.
Therefore, you may see some posts which are dated to some time this last year as I transfer them over to this blog.  I thank you for you understanding and hope, if you have not seen them yet, that you will enjoy the little things that make my life happy!

Writer's Life: Diving Deep Again

I woke this morning, though in truth I've been working over these ideas for about a month now, with the desire to head to the library to work on research for my newest work.  In truth, it started several years ago, but stalled.

It would have remained stalled, if not for a dear and wonderful friend with whom I was talking just before Christmas.  And a dream.

I will admit, I had the dream first.  I dreamt of a peg-legged heroine.  Though, in my dream, she was really more American Old West that she will become in my story. (I had been reading heavy doses of Louis L'Amour at that time.)

Then, swapping ideas of different stories we have come up with I got that spark.  You know, that light bulb moment.  I knew what I needed to do in order to jump start this story that I felt had incredible potential.

Since then, I'm been doing some digging and research.  And this morning, I brought a bunch of it with me to the library in order to better focus on what I wanted to accomplish today.

I can imagine that you are picking up a little bit of a theme from the books I have stacked before me and the print out of the map.  I am setting my story in Wales, in an alternate time stream to the Victorian 1860's.

I now know where my fictional family will live in Wales, and why they moved there.  I have ideas about the rest.  But today, this was a good start.  Thanks, Jenna for being willing to listen to my ridiculous story ideas and to give me your amazing ones in return.  And I know mine aren't always ridiculous!

But, I am called back to my purpose today!  Diving back into Welsh folktales, mythologies and fairy tales, Welsh history, Victorian etiquette & of course Welsh Verse!  Not to mention learning what artists, authors & poets were busy writing in the 1860's.  Already have the works of one!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Sonnets From the Portuguese" in this lovely volume that I scored for free last week at a local thrift store!

Country Diary of a Lady: 05/06/2014

Well, fingers crossed, it would appear that spring may have finally decided to grace us with it's presence.  Though, there was a dusting of snow yesterday morning.  But today, the skies are blue with fluffy clouds, the air is clear and warm and the frogs are singing LOUD and CLEAR in the low marshy places around camp.  Both the Spring Peepers as well as Northern Leopard frogs (which I had to look up because I didn't know what I was hearing, haha).

I know that I was very quiet the past few months, and the only excuse I can give is the weather was so dismal, and nothing seemed to be changing.  Oh yeah, and I moved! Ha ha!  But now that spring is just around the corner (finally) I feel the old creative juices beginning to flow again.

It only seemed appropriate that I just finished reading "The Secret Garden" by Francis Hodgson Burnett.  The tale of a little girl who is transformed through a garden, more or less.  I love the imagery.  She talks about a haze of green or a green mist (I can't remember which) creeping over the gray bareness of the garden.  I am looking forward to seeing the green mist this year.  Though we do have a lot of evergreens up here in the Northwoods, I long to see the soft fuzz of new leaves.  The maples are budding right now.  I can see them outside the window where I am sitting.  Their little red buds are bumping out all over the branches and twigs.

I am so looking forward to this spring.  I have bought so many different packets of seeds, I don't think that I have enough places to plant them all!  Morning Glories, Nasturtiums, Moon Flowers, Pansies, etc.  I can't wait for the earth to bring forth it's bounty!

I plan to plant the Nasturtiums in our south facing, full sun beds in front of the house, to spill over with their color!  And I have a few small trellises to send the morning glories up in the same beds.  I just enjoy growth.

Country Diary of a Lady: 04/20/2014 Warm April Sonshine

When I first set out to write this blog, I declared that I would chronicle the seasons as well as my life.  And I honestly have failed at the these past few months.  Perhaps because it was the tail end of a particularly harsh winter, it was always cold, and the snow just continued to fall. (In fact, we got a foot last Thursday).

However, today the sun is shining!  The air is warm with the scent of moist earth and the beginnings of new things.  The lilac bushes at the corner of the house are showing buds and the trees feel the change coming too.

And even more than that, it is Easter Sunday.  Resurrection Sunday.  A day of remembrance and celebration.  Of joy and peace.

I have been thinking about this a good deal since the Good Friday service I attended.  The pastor challenged us to take an attitude of Thanksgiving with us and remembrance as we went into this particular weekend.  We wrote out on small pieces of paper our Thanksgiving to the Lord and physically nailed it to the cross.

It was a very powerful moment.  A moment when I could look back and see just how Christ has released me.  How he has freed me!  For many, many years I lived in darkness.  Even knowing him, I had a shadow that I  had refused to let go of.  It was in my heart.  I wasn't ready to forgive.  I was trapped in the story.

But then, the Lord allowed his servant to speak to me at a conference I was at last month.  And I thank the Lord for giving Dr. Rick Marks the gifts and passions that he has.  For through the insight he shared, I was finally able to throw the darkness off!  I learned that I was trapped in a story that my brain had been telling me for years, but that it was not MY story.  It was someone else's story.  And that freed me to finally forgive.  And the lightness that I felt in that moment, the very lifting of my soul, was more than enough.  I can only pray that the essence of that moment was as a delicious perfume to my Savior, Jesus Christ.

Which brings me back to Resurrection Sunday.  I cannot even begin to imagine the pain, the very physical pain that Christ went through.  Last night I read through Matthew, Mark & Luke's account of the Crucifixion, and what really stayed with me.  What was really constant in all three accounts, was Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.

"And going a little father he fell on his face and prayed, saying, 'My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will." Matthew 26:39

"And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, "Abba, Father, all things are possible for you.  Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will." Mark 14:35

"And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, 'Father if you are willing, remove this cup from me.  Nevertheless, not my will but yours, be done.' and there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him.  And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground." Luke 22:41-44

He knew, he knew exactly what he was going to go through and instead of running from it, he turned to his Father for strength.  And he prayed earnestly, yet with the knowledge that his Father knew better and more than him.  There was no other way.

And so this day, as you revel in the sunshine, in the fellowship with family, in the time (as my Family's customs is) of walking out after a wonderful time of communion and fellowship around the table into the freshness of the spring air, I would just remind you.  My friends, my brothers and sisters, Christ died, he was buried and on the third day HE AROSE! He arose to fulfill everything that was written in the scriptures about him, that we may NO LONGER be separated from him.  And so that when God looks at us, he sees only his Beautiful, Perfect & Holy Son.

Today the SON is shining!

HE IS RISEN!  HE IS RISEN INDEED!