A Few of My Favorite Things

 

I love to enable (and be enabled by!) fellow stitchers by sharing designs and stash and goodies I find, but today is something new. I'm not sure why it has never occurred to me to share other things, but I recently had to do a re-stock of a few of my favorite things and it dawned on me I should share! 

So today, skincare! We all have our tried and true favorites, and these are mine. I've been using them for years on my sensitive, very dry skin. Mind you, these are not fancy formulas with the latest trendy ingredients taking the interwebs by storm. They're simple, old fashioned products made by small American businesses. One of the recipes is over 250 years old! I know we're in the age of 25-step skincare routines, and if that's what you enjoy and you love the results, more power to you! Me? I would have to take a nap halfway through! Basic products for a basic girl!

Soap from Connecticut 

Several years ago I went through a long season of extreme stress and my skin went absolutely haywire. It was so red and inflamed it looked like I had been burned. It was awful and nothing I tried soothed it. I had been buying lotion from this Connecticut goat farm for a while but hadn't tried any of their soap. I added one of these Sensitive Skin face bars to an order to give it a try. I don't know whether it's the goats' milk or the clay or both, but my skin loves this soap. It didn't happen overnight, but it saved my skin. 

Créme from Montana

This Wool Wax Creme is a super thick formula made in Montana from the lanolin in sheep's wool (obviously you'll want to skip this if you're allergic to wool). This stuff is amazing. When you put it on, it can feel slightly tacky at first, but if you keep rubbing it in, it melts into your skin and creates a moisture barrier. Sheep are waterproof and so are you! Seriously, it stands up to showers and handwashing better than anything I've ever used. My skin has begun changing over the last year or so (you ladies of a certain age know!) and it's even drier than ever. This heavy duty creme is keeping it soft and protected. It's too heavy for the face, but it's great elsewhere. The shop I linked has a little 2 oz. tub if you just want to try it. It's available from several shops that sell Montana-made goods.

Eye cream from Wisconsin 

This. THIS is my holy grail. A 250-year-old moisturizer. It's from a historical apothecary shop on Etsy. I have tried and enjoyed a number of goodies from this shop, but this "pomatum for wrinkles" is my absolute favorite. I use it as an eye cream. I have to be careful about the moisturizer I use on my face as it seems to prefer something light, even though it's quite dry, so I don't use this all over my face, but it's the best eye cream I've ever used. This shop also offers tiny sample sizes of a lot of their products, so you can try out lots of things and see what works for you.

Those are three of my favorite products that suit my skin wonderfully well. I've been reordering them for years. Everyone has different skincare needs and preferences, and the nice thing about all of these is that they're not expensive like so much of the skincare products these days. If you try one of them and it doesn't suit you, you haven't wasted a lot of money. If you try something and love it, you can help me keep these small family businesses going!

If you have a favorite product from a small business, share it in the comments! I would love to check it out!

Saturday Sampler: Last of Summer Edition

 

Summer has ended on a sad note. Mr. Wonderful had a birthday and we had some lovely celebrations but a few days later he lost his mother. He's just gotten home from Texas and we are tired and drained but also feeling very blessed by all the love and care from our church family. It's a quiet, rainy Saturday. The house is clean, the laundry done, the fridge stocked. I wanted to make sure when he got home, everything could stop and be quiet, so he could rest. 

June and July had been taken up mostly with my big sewing room clean out project, but that skidded to a halt in early August. We lost a member of our church family and there was busyness with that, and then we had our own loss. So, I'm behind with some things I had wanted to have finished by the end of summer. But that's life. Someone once said, "Life is what happens to you while you're making other plans."

I'm looking forward to fall, though cooler weather is a while off yet. Looking forward to getting back into my sewing room and finishing that up. Looking forward to settling back into my stitching. Just looking forward to normal after a month of loss and everything that goes with it.

I hope the last few days of summer are finding you well, and that you're feeling that little spark of anticipation of all the lovely things fall brings, even if you have to fake fall like I do!

Happy Birthday, Babies!

 

The werewolves are four years old today! I look back at their baby pictures and can't believe they were ever that tiny and fragile. Happy Birthday to our beautiful girls!

Easy Fix for Floppy Bags

 

I love bags. Not expensive designer bags, but high utility, go anywhere, do anything bags. I especially like small ones that hold a lot and have lots of pockets and zippers and nooks and crannies. I'm a bit of a connoisseur. 

I keep a "go bag" (under an airline seat size) packed and ready at all times. To accompany that bag, I like to have a small crossbody bag to wear that holds the usual purse stuff. Between those two bags, I can skip checking luggage, quickly get through security, hop on a flight, and have all my things with me at all times, without worrying about whether my luggage will make it to my destination. (Why I do this might be a subject for another post.)

I have prowled Amazon for many hours in search of wonderful (inexpensive!) bags, and I've found that many of the ones with the features I like are also made of nylon, which is cool because they're water resistant, but uncool because they often don't have rigid bottoms and they're floppy, which I don't like.

Bottomless and floppy (boooo!)

Fortunately, this is easy to fix. All you need is some cardboard or other stiff-ish material, fabric, and glue.

Measure the bottom of the bag, between the seams. Stretch the fabric slightly to get an accurate measurement. You'll want the bottom to fit snugly.

Cut your bottom material a tiny bit smaller than your measurement, and remember a thicker bottom like cardboard will be less forgiving size-wise. You want to use something that is stiff but not so rigid it can't be manipulated, as you'll have to work it in under those seams. Trim the corners to make it easier to fit under the end seams.

Cover cardboard with fabric (I used hot glue to secure it). Work the bottom in under the seams and that's all there is to it.

Not floppy (yaaaay!)

Having a rigid bottom in a bag makes it a little easier to dig around in (think digging around in a box as opposed to a plastic bag), and it's kinda fun to customize with pretty fabric. It's also a good way to brighten up the inside to make it easier to see what's in there.

The straps are also from Amazon and are sold as "camera straps." They come in tons of colors and designs and are another fun way to customize a bag. A wider strap is also more comfortable than a skinny one, at least for me.

Hope this is helpful, and may you find the perfect bag!

Top Secret!

 

A rare behind-the-scenes look at the magic that is Christmas Open House! (No, there are no hints!)

In the middle of my massive summer project--reorganizing my sewing room--I decided to re-do my Christmas Open House notebook. This is a big ol' notebook where I store charts for future Open Houses. 

I not only think ahead, I try to work ahead when I can. There are seven years of theme ideas in this notebook, and I slowly collect my designs, pulling from my stash and purchasing when needed. 

As we say in Texas, Lord willing and the creek don't rise, we have years of Christmassy joy ahead of us! This year's Open House is coming along nicely, and I put the first stitches into next year's just today. And I must say, you will not see the 2028 and 2029 themes coming... and they are FUN! 

Stay tuned!

Christmas in July!

 

Christmas is five months from today, y'all! I realize we're all sweltering in this heat (except for our Aussie friends... *waving*), but on this blog, we embrace the weather we love and ignore the weather we don't.  So... 

I made soup.

I'm calling this Frankensoup because I mixed together a couple of recipes and added some stuff of my own, so it's kind of a mess, but it turned out well. It's a slow cooker recipe, so you don't have to bother with the stove, and it's super quick to throw together if you use frozen vegetable mixes, which I love to keep on hand. For normal people, we'll give it a nice name:

Creamy Chicken Vegetable Soup

1.5 lbs chicken, chopped (I used leftover grilled)

1 bag frozen soup mix vegetables (I use PictSweet Farms 28 oz bag)

1 c. frozen seasoning blend (onions, red & green peppers)

1/2 c. flour

Seasoning ***see note

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp EACH dried sage and rosemary

1/4 tsp dried thyme

a bay leaf or two

4 c. chicken broth

1 c. heavy cream

*****

Mix chicken, vegetables, flour, and seasonings (except bay leaf) in slow cooker. Pour in chicken broth and add bay leaf (I pop the bay leaf in last so it's easy to find and discard when done). Cover and cook on high about 3 hours. Remove bay leaf, add cream and stir well. Cook about 10 more minutes.

Because I was using leftover grilled chicken which was already seasoned with salt, pepper, and onion, I cut back on the other seasonings. If you're using raw chicken, you may want to adjust your seasonings and your cook time.

The soup mix blend I use has *everything* in it: peas, carrots, corn, green beans, tomatoes, potatoes, celery. I love it. Use whatever vegetable blend you prefer.

Back to my little finish.

This is Santa is Coming by Stitchy Princess. I stitched him as charted with the recommended DMC, except for the border, where I used Caron Wildflowers in Ash because I was too lazy to alternate white and grey stitches. This gorgeous blue fabric is Inky Blue linen from this Etsy shop. It doesn't look like she has any at the moment, but perhaps she'll have more soon. It's a beautiful deep blue, that's very well balanced and doesn't pull too purple or grey.

I'm up to my eyebrows in a massive sewing room clean out and reorganization. It's the kind of project where it looks worse the more work you do, and you have to keep at it until it starts getting better. I'm still in the "it looks like raccoons got loose in here" stage, but I'm beginning to see glimmers of hope. Of course, I'm getting lots of "help."

They are ever-present, always underfoot, and progress is frequently derailed by emergency snuggles. But we're managing. 

Hope you're all well and enjoying your summer. I am so ready for fall. But I pretty much live in a state of being ready for fall, so I guess that's to be expected. Maybe a new Christmas chart and a new soup recipe will help you ignore the heat!

Five months til Christmas!

One More Patriotic Finish

 

I have one more patriotic finish to share before I move on to other themes for the year. This is Quaker Snippets No.3 by Brenda Gervais (With Thy Needle & Thread). Stitched on 32 ct. Natural Brown Undyed linen with the recommended threads.

When I started all this 250th stitching at the beginning of the year I only had a few patriotic finishes. I'm pretty happy with what I've gotten done (and finished & framed!) and my shelf-top display has filled in nicely. 

But I'm ready to move on to other subjects, namely fall and Halloween! I love Halloween and have collected some pretty cute little designs over the last couple of years that need stitching up.

Stay tuned! Switching themes and color palettes soon! 

Cool Stuff

 

When I find good stuff I always like to let y'all know because we all need goodies sometimes. 

I like to use a magnetic board to hold my working copy of my chart as I stitch, which also holds my needle minders and scissors. I can pick up one thing and it has all my stuff on it. Easy to move around and easy to put away quickly. Except for my colored pencil I use to mark my progress on my working chart. That was always rolling around somewhere or being stolen by a werewolf I will not name (Marigold).

I found these cool pencil clips on Amazon and love them (search for paper clip pencil holders). Now all my stuff is attached to my board and my pencil is safe from furry thievery. 

Speaking of colored pencils, I found these at Dollar Tree and they're my new favorites for marking my charts. They come in 12 colors (3 packs of 4 different colors) and have a nice thick lead and a tiny built-in sharpener which works really well.

It's always nice to find little things that make stitching easier and more fun. Especially if they're inexpensive!

Happy Stitching!

Happy Birthday to Us!

 

Happy 250th Birthday to all my fellow Americans! 

Today also marks 23 years of active duty service for my favorite veteran, Mr. Wonderful! Have a happy and safe Independence Day, everyone!