Saturday, July 7, 2012

Silhouettes in Needleart ~~~a shadow


Silhouettes

 I'm really into those lately. To me, they are an interesting way of expressing the artsy side of needleart and not too hard to stitch up as it being monochromatic. Black thread seemed to be the vintage style and I"ve seen many of the old ones done in black in antique places.

It's really a shadow. Of a person. Whose identity is vague. However, there are particulars that create shadows particular to the person and this is what is the most intriguing in designing one.

I hope your weekend is full of light, and not shadows, even though shadows is when we look inward so no one can see the details of our facial expression, our pain, our memories.  Just a shadow.

Till later,
Jennifer

Friday, July 6, 2012

Homemade Oatmeal Cookies, the Quaker Way

Still trying to figure out some fine tuning of Google Blogger but I couldn't resist to show you the shape of this homemade oatmeal cookie as I took it off the drying plate last night.

Yup, it's a heart shape.  I truly didn't do this purposely, just turned out that way!


Got milk?



Yummy, yummy, yummy, I got love in my tum--my.............


The traditional recipe tweaked by myself and has been for years is this:

Homemade Oatmeal Cookies


1 stick + 6 tablespoons of softened butter
3/4 cup of firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup of granulated sugar
2 eggs
3 teaspoons of vanilla
1 and 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 tablespoon of ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of salt
3 cups of Quaker Oats, old-fashioned

Heat oven to 350 degrees. In larger bowl beat softened butter and sugars, both types on medium speed with electric mixer until creamy.
Add eggs one at the time, then add vanilla and mix well.
In a separate bowl add the flour, backing soda, cinnamon, and salt and mix well.
Then add gradually, divide into 4 mixings of the flour mixture into the large bowl of butter and sugar.
You can add raisins if you want at this point but I have never.
Add 3 cups of Quaker oats, old-fashioned and mix with mixer well for 3 minutes.
If on hand, add about 1 cup of crushed pecans.

Use parchment paper and tear off a large section to cover a light colored pan.
This is REALLY important to keep the cookies light on the bottom and not brown.
Also it helps the cookie not stick at all.
The same piece of paper can be used over and over and this recipe makes about 4 dozen cookies.

Drop dough by teaspoonful about 2 inches apart onto paper in pan.
Watch how your home is filled with a lovely cinnamonny, buttery, fragrance!

Have Mayfield cold milk on hand for a large glass because when you take these out of the oven, the first dozen is usually gone between two people. :P

In between each batch cooking, wash hands thoroughly and do some Quaker stitching.
Quaker will be on the brain all day. :)

Blog reconstruction



Today this blog is in total reconstruction. Please excuse the various changes throughout the day. I was hoping to make it more interesting and readable but the new Blogger issues, I'm learning......SEW......hopefully it will be at a useable face by tonight. I've got to see where I really missed the in's and out's of the new format.

. Thank you. Jennifer