One Last Halloween Gift

Wow, I think this is the most gift charts and posts that I've done in a single month. 

This will be my final Halloween chart then it will be on to Christmas and winter if my designing mojo holds up.

"Hardanger Spider's Web"

6" x 6" (78 x78) on 28 count evenweave

Again I didn't write any directions for this one, I suck at Hardanger directions, but you can go to Nordic Needles Stitch Dictionary and find quite a few examples and directions for the stitches. I added Doves Eyes and Reverse Branch just as an example, I really want to see where your vision takes the chart.

I charted it for white or DMC 762 for the web, straight stitch for the outside webbing being couched down with petite crystal or clear seed beads as dew drops, and black for the spiders. 

I know there are other websites that you can get directions from but I can't seem to find them among my bookmarks, so if you have other sources I'd love to hear about them so I can add them to the post.

More Stitch Tutorials

http://www.needlework-tips-and-techniques.com/learn-hardanger.html
http://www.lynxlace.com/Hardangertutorial.html
http://maryjoanstitching.blogspot.ca/2011/01/hardanger.html

Thank you for the links Marl.

That's it for September everyone, I hope you enjoy the chart and as always, I would love to see your finished pieces. So until next time, thank you so much for stopping by the cabin and leaving your thoughts behind.

Take Care Everyone & Happy Stitchin'

Hugs, Sandy 

Making Homemade Brown Sugar

I wanted to make my Brown Sugar Honey Mustard marinade/glaze for salmon a few day back but when I went to the pantry I was out of brown sugar. 

I didn't want to have to wait for the hubs to pick some up on his way home from work and couldn't drive to the store 10 miles away, still waiting on a part for the Jeep.

So what was I to do? I made my own and it tastes just as good if not better than store bought and is much cheaper.

 Homemade Brown Sugar

 

Looks yummy doesn't it, and it's sooooo easy. 

 All you need is regular granulated sugar and molasses. 

I put 2 cups of sugar into my Kitchen-Ade with the wire whip attachment turned it on to about a 2 - 4 setting and started to drizzle in the molasses a teaspoon at a time until I got the color and flavor I wanted. It only took about 10 minutes total. The dark bits are molasses and can be mashed in with a spoon and mixed more so they are absorbed better, but I personally like the rustic look of it.

You can use a hand mixer or a food processor if that's what you have, the results will be the same, yummy brown sugar for less than store bought. And just like store bought you need to keep this in an airtight container to keep it soft.

Brown Sugar Honey Mustard Marinade

1 T. packed Brown Sugar

1 T. Butter - melted

1 T. Olive oil (vegetable oil works to)

1 T. Honey

1 T. Soy Sauce

1 T. Dijon Mustard

1 clove garlic - minced

2 t. toasted Sesame Seeds

 

In a small bowl mix everything together well except the Sesame Seeds.

Pour marinade over the salmon cover and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes but no longer than 1 hour.  

Remove from the fridge, uncover and broil with the salmon 4 to 6 inches away from the heat for 15 to 20 minutes brushing with excess marinade a couple of times. Remove from broiler sprinkle with the toasted Sesame Seeds and serve. Makes enough for 1 pound of salmon.  

Hope you try these out sometime there just so yummy.

Thanks for stopping by the cabin.

Take Care Everyone & Happy Fall

Hugs, Sandy

A Fall Hardanger Gift

I designed a trio of Hardanger pumpkins for you to stitch up. 

I purposely only charted out the Kloster Blocks, Back stitching and Cross Stitch, I wanted anyone who decides to stitch this piece to put their own stamp on it. Algerian Eyelets, Woven Bars, Wrapped Bars, Doves Eyes, Picots, Woven Divided Branch, the choices are yours and many. So pick out your favorite pumpkin pearl cottons and floss and stitch away.

This one is for fall. 

And for those of you with a tiny bit of spooky in you .......

This one has two cute little spiders for Halloween.

I would really love to see how you end up stitchin' one of these smalls. Each one is only around 6" x 3" when finished. If you need help with the stitches the Nordic Needle Stitch Dictionary has lots of stitch explanations and diagrams. 

Other Links for Hardanger
http://www.needlework-tips-and-techniques.com/learn-hardanger.html
http://www.lynxlace.com/Hardangertutorial.html
http://maryjoanstitching.blogspot.ca/2011/01/hardanger.html

Thanks for the links Marl.

Thanks for stopping by I hope you enjoy the chart.
So until next time .........

Take Care & Happy Stitchin'

 Hugs, Sandy

A Halloween Gift From Me to You

Decided to design a couple of Halloween gifties for all my followers.

Hope you like them and as always I would love to see a pic if you happen to stitch one of them up.

Introducing "Spooky Halloween" and "Scary Halloween"

I think they would make cute pincushions, pillow's, wall hanging's or even stitched on a Trick or Treat bag.

Here's the chart, you might have to fiddle with the size a bit. 

I have it set to print at 8.5 x 10.

And the color list. Everything is stitched using two (2) strands of floss except the black back stitching which is one (1) strand. Each one is about 6 5/8" x 3 1/2" on 14/28 count .

That's it for today, so until next time ..........

Take Care & Happy Stitchin'

 Hugs, Sandy

More Canning from our Garden

I went out into the weed patch that is my garden on Saturday and harvested a large basket of cucumbers, don't know what I'm going to do with them yet, and a 5 gallon bucket of assorted tomatoes. There were beefsteak tomatoes, Roma tomatoes and a medium small red that I can't remember the name of. Plus a small basket of little Yellow Pear tomatoes for salads and snacking.

After all of our hard work of harvesting, peeling, coring and seeding, then cooking for 20 minutes and then putting them through the trusty 'Squeezo' food mill not to mention chopping peppers and onion and sauteing those and harvesting herbs then back into the pot to cook for another 4 to 6 hours to thicken it up, we got a whopping.............

Four Quarts of very yummy Spaghetti Sauce.

Recipe from the Kerr Canning Book.

My hubs said if want to do that again he would rather buy tomato puree instead of going through all the peeling, coring and seeding. 

Of course he did most of the peeling and I did most of the coring and seeding, on the bright side all of our tomatoes are heirloom varieties so I now have three jars of tomato seeds going through the fermenting process to save the seeds. This is my first time trying this, so I hope it works. I'm following directions from gnowfglins.com.

Well that's it for today, so until next time..........

Take Care Everyone

Hugs, Sandy

I'm Still Around

Just want to let everyone know that I'm still around, been busy with the garden and other summer type activities like camping and day trips and now getting our jeep back in drive able condition. 

I've canned another 28 quarts of pickles and four pints of pickle relish, so now we have bread and butter, dill and sweet pickles in the basement pantry. I think I'll have enough cucumbers for another batch then I think the patch will be done for the season. I've also used a lot of cucumbers for salads and snacking. Now I just have to come up with some great salsa and sauce recipes for canning our tomatoes and can't forget the beets that I'll need to can in the next couple of weeks.

This was our camp site for our first camping trip at Basin Creek in Montana. It was beautiful right along the creek (that I couldn't keep Jack out of), but had lots of flies buzzing around so no eating outside and only being around 8000 feet it was still in the 80's during the day.

The hub's and Jack doing a little gold panning in Basin Creek. The creek had a lot of mica in it but no gold that he could find.

This was my view from inside the trailer on our second camping trip up in the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming at the Tie Flume Camp Ground. No bugs and at 10,000 feet the temps were in the upper 60's every day, so nice. We left a day early because it snowed a bit that night and Jack was having tummy trouble from the canned dog food and had me up every two hours.

 Cody chillin' in the shade at Tie Flume camp ground.

On the way home from this trip we lost our rear drive line just outside of Graybull, Wyoming, so after pulling it off we had to limp home at 50 to 55 mph down the highway for about 80 to 90 miles.

Here's Jack just chillin' in his baby pool. He gives new meaning to the term 'Dog Days of Summer'. He would literately run down the porch steps across the yard and hop into the pool dipping himself up and down like a tea bag a few times and then lay down.

This is all the stitching that I've done lately. I started in August at the camp ground then stitched a bit more at home. So of course I've missed several of the TUSAL and 2015 Smalls SAL updates since I haven't had anything to show.

Well, that's it for now, hopefully I'll have more to report later on. 

So until next time......

Take Care Everyone

 Hugs, Sandy