We had so many requests for recipes after open house that I wanted to share of few with you.

I wish that I could give credit where credit is do for these, but my hand written recipe cards passed from person to person doesn't tell me where some of them originated.

Here are a few of the favorites....I do know where this recipe comes from.

A good friend of mine would bring them every Christmas morning. Her sweet 85 year old mom in Canada would make them and mail them to her, and she was kind enought to share them with my family.

This recipe is

Aunt Cora's shortbread

1 1/2 cup salted butter - soft at room temperature

cut into small pieces and cream

add

1 cup icing sugar (that is Canadian for powdered sugar)

3 cups flour

1/2 tsp vanilla

beat well

place mixture on cookie sheet. I use a jelly roll pan, it works wonderfully. Roll out.

It will fill a full sized pan side to side.

Use very little four on your rolling pin to roll out the mixture.

Prick with a fork up and down the pan.

Bake at 325 degrees

30 minutes until golden brown

Shut off oven

cut cookies while warm and still on pan.

Leave on pan and place in oven again for 5 minutes

let cool completely and remove squares from pan.

they are soooo good, and only 4 ingredients!

this recipe was printed in a past Reebok magazine

Lemon Thumbprint Cookies

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar

beat together until well blended then add:

2 large egg yolks

1 Tbs grated lemon zest

1 Tbs fresh lemon juice

1/2 tsp kosher salt

with mixer on low, beat in

2 1/2 cup flour

until moist clumps form

gather dough together in a bowl to bind.

shape tablespoons of dough into 1 inch balls. Place them 1 inch apart on parchment lined cookie sheet. Make a deep well in the center of each ball. I used a melon baller dipped in flour to make the well.

Bake cookies until firm and lightly golden on bottom, about 18-20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Remove cookies from oven and immediately fill indentation with lemon curd.

You can also use lemon pie filling.

The whole recipe only uses about 1 cup of lemon curd.

Return to oven and bake 2 minutes longer to set curd.

lightly dust edges with confectioners sugar before serving.

I wish that I had a picture of this Cranberry Salsa. It is just a beautiful color.

it is good all year around. I freeze cranberries and use them in July.

It makes a great chip dip salsa if you leave it really chunky.

Wendy's Cranberry Salsa

1 12 oz. package fresh cranberries

3/4 cup sugar

1 medium jalapeno, remove seeds and coarsely chop

3-6 chopped green onions

3 Tbs fresh cilantro or about 1 tsp dried (but fresh is MUCH better)

1/4 tsp cumin

place all ingredients in food processor. Process until mixture is coarsely chopped. Store in refrigerator overnight to allow flavors to blend.

You can serve it over cream cheese with crackers,

and it is also great as a relish with pork or turkey.

and last but not least.....

Pecan Toffee Bars

I will post a picture after I make these again. I promised Joy I would make them every once in a while. She absolutely loved them!

to make the bar cookie base:

1 cup butter

2 cup flour

1/2 cup powdered sugar

crumble together and put in a 9 x 12 cake pan.

Bake at

350 degrees for 15 minutes

top of bar cookie:

mix together

1 14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

add

1 cup chopped pecans

1 10 oz pkg toffee bits

(I use heath bits you find in the chocolate chip department)

pour over cookie base (no need to cool)

bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes

chill until set and cut into bars

These won't last long!

I hope that these recipes make their way into your annual holiday baking!

They are always in mine...

A few of our favorite things....

Aren't these WONDERFUL! Our customers at open house sure thought so.

They sold like crazy!

The are called "Pretty Little Things", I think the name fits them perfectly. Where did they find such cute antique things! Those girls really have a knack.

Each pincushion is finish flawlessly, and adorned with 3 jeweled pins.

Soooo reasonable, ranging from $6.00 to $13.00 dollars.

This is a picture before the cabinet was almost bare....

I had a hard time keeping my hands out of the cabinet.

They ALL wanted to come home with me!

Right now, as I am typing this, I am wearing my tape measure bracelets.

I had to take some home. Now choosing colors was hard. I would like one in every color.

Something else that I will be sporting this winter....my tape measure bag.
I will use mine as a purse. So cute with a crisp white shirt.
Beautiful new scissors. Tiny sharp points and large enough finger holes.
Affordable to, just $20.00 a pair.

The finishing on this Lizzie Kate snowman was a hit. We put together kits, complete with everything but the thread. We have just a few left if you need one.

Sort of springish, but oh so cute. fluffy, stuffy, felt tape measures.
Joy loves bling! Anything that sparkles. We have pens, tape measures and nail files for the girls that like to sparkle!

To round out the table, we even had a few small gift items that would be perfect for a neighbor,

a teacher or your babysitter.

Where friends gather

What a fun party. Where all friends gather, laugh, shop and eat. What a great way to spend a Saturday. We love to see you all!

So much fun stuff!


These three always have a fun time. We love to see their smiling faces at the shop

Thanks for coming to the party everyone!

The big day is here!

Well, it is that time....the first Saturday of December.

The annual

Christmas Open House.

This is a peaceful picture of the front of the store, before the crowd!

Hey, the more, the merrier!

Yep, the last storm took the petunias...so sad.

My sister in law said, "come over and take some branches from the pine tree out front". While she was at work I played Edward Scissor Hands and did a little pruning. I was a little afraid she would say, "what happened to my tree!!" but you actually couldn't even tell that I took any branches out. Whewwww.

The cabinets are filled and displayed. If you like the sampler on the top shelf: Lizzie Kate's "Green Flip-it" series, we have a great sale on it right now. All 6 patterns and the border for $12.00. The regular price is $27.00!
We really have a lot of beautiful Christmas pictures. We have some really wonderful friends and employees that stitch for us. We love you guys!

Of course one of the coziest things about the shop is that we have a fire on the cold winter days. It is wonderful to spend the day stitching by the fire with friends.

They still look sooo beautiful!

This will probably be the last day for the planters....I haven't had the heart to take out the plants because they look so beautiful. November 23rd and blooming like crazy...I think the 6-12 inches of snow that will be coming later today will put an end to that. I will miss the cheerful purple petunias....

Another box for Cynthia

Cynthia has also stitched a Drawn Thread design that she didn't want framed. She thought a box would be perfect. Because of the garden theme of the piece, I thought the box should look like a weathered garden box. I think the color looks like verdigris copper, and all of the edges are aged. The picket fence around the outside is just perfect!

A box for Cynthia

Cynthia had a beautiful stitchery that was partly destroyed. We tried to salvage it for her by using it in bits and pieces. We used part for the top of this fun box. If you notice her two sons names are in the alphabets and the large letter C stands for Cynthia.
The edge of the box lid is paper punched with a Martha Stewart edge punch. I just love this one. I of course purchased all of the papers and trims from Paper Creations in the Brickyard.

Carolyn and Lynn finished a few small pieces for her to keep in her box, and purchased her a pair of scissors from the shop that goes perfectly with the papers. It was really sweet of them to do. Cynthia was thrilled!

I wanted to show you the wonderful assortment of box sizes that we have at the shop. The Y.E.S. glue is a great glue to use when covering your box. It is really tacky and doesn't look bumpy under your paper. It won't bleed through either, and is acid free.

If you don't like spiders...don't look!

I just love my beaded spiders! The most talented lady was selling these last year and I came home with a few....She was selling them this year at the Farmers Market in town. You can even hang them on a necklace and she makes some with hair clips. I attached this one to my jacket for today. I went to my nieces school Halloween party this afternoon and the kids really like him. I thought you needed to see him too....

Wool Pumpkins

These couldn't be easier! It just took forever for me to sit down and make them...

They are made from Weeks Dye Works wool fabric cut into 2 circles. You can make your circles any size you like. Then just Stitch two together and fill with crushed walnut shells. I sort of soft sculptured them with perle cotton thread. Stitch right through the center with a sharp needle, coming up from the bottom to the top and around the sides of the pumpkin with each stitch. Tie off with a knot on the bottom after you get the number of ribs that you want on your pumpkin. The leaves are two layers of wool and I stitched around them with the sewing machine. Curled vine is a brown paper covered wire and the stem is a real branch. Aren't they cute! You can use them as a pincushion is you would like or just for display.

Witches Wheel is pretty incredible!

Wendy just finished up Witches Wheel by Glendon Place. You would never know from the picture on the pattern that there is so much color in the addition of all the beads. It is really neat to see finished. We will have it on display here at the shop. It is pretty cool....

New Drawn Thread design

Since the last newsletter went out we received two new Drawn Thread designs.

The first is

Almost Halloween

and the next is

To Everything a Season

both such cute designs.

A little something from 1897....

Lynn was traveling through New Hampshire recently and found this little gem. It is only about 2.25" x 1.75". It was stitched by an 11 year old girl (with good eyes of course!). This has to be at least a 50 or 60 count fabric. Such a beautiful piece. Lynn's grandmother was born in 1897, she was meant to have and cherish this brooch.

Just a teaser.....

Helma and Betsy just finished a couple of "Yule Tree" designs. I wanted to give you just a little snippet of the finished work until they are framed. The purple design is the actual colors that the designer intended. It has a very Victorian look. The red and green tree is a more traditional color scheme. Betsy put this together. It is just beautiful. We can imagine a million different combinations. I will show you the full design after framing....

My fun new pincushion!

I think this is so sweet. A friend surprised me today at work with this little treasure. She is so talented, and each of her pincushions are unique. I can't resist them! She has a blog www.gotoprettylittlethings.blogspot.com if you want to see more. They are sold at one of my favorite local art markets. They only hold about 4 a year, and this weekend is the magical weekend! Of course I will be going!!

Wool Acorns

Blackbird design had these in their Christmas book "Joyoux Noel". We love them! We have made sooo many. People keep asking to buy them from our display. They are super simple to make. Joy lives on oak lane, so you can guess where we get our acorn caps. Then the wool felts are just odds and ends that I just happened to have, mostly Weeks Dye Works brand. Joy will gather like a little squirrel this fall and if you would like some tops just stop by the store. We'll supply all that we can.

Noel 2009

We have this one framed. I wanted to show you the finished design. The quarter is to show you the scale of the finished piece. LuAnn stitched this over one on 28 count! Isn't it just gorgeous!

Mediterranean Mermaid

This beautiful piece came in for framing...We just love seeing the finished work!

I thought you might like to see the wonderful detail. Lots of bead work and metallic braids. The bikini top is made up of three beautiful crystal droplets.

I wish my picture was a little more clear. I'm afraid that the sun caused a shadow line right through the picture. I think the other shadows just look like seaweed.

One of our brave military women worked on this while in Iraq.

She did a beautiful job.

The design is called "Mediterranean Mermaid" by Mirabelia.

A few more boxes

Lynn has been busy with boxes also. These tops are from the Blackbird book "Joyeux Noel". The top box is a copy of the stitchery that Lynn stitched and framed. Carolyn did the sponge painting. The bottom box is painted and waxed. The best part about this box is the lining. It is a love letter that Lynn's husband wrote her. So touching!