Fabric, Floss & Faith Give Away !!!

Here it is my 50th post.....SO, I am having a give away to celebrate.

Isn't blog life fun? !!!

Fabric

Kate Spains "Flurry" for Moda

1/2 yd, 1/2 yd, 1 fat quarter

Cute little red birds, flowers, candy, and stars

in Christmas colors plus blue, my favorite.

Floss

DMC & JP Coats

Red, green and blue floss

  pearl cotton & floss

Colors to match the fabric.

Faith

"God's Guidance at Dawn"

by Mary Light

A sweet little devotional published years ago

that I wanted to share with someone.

Now what do you have to do to win???

1 - Follow my blog

&

2 - Comment about how you would use

the Christmas fabric & embroidery floss.


(Don't forget to include your email if it is not
on your blog...)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

That is it...

I will announce the winner on August 6, 2011.

Hope you win but most importantly

I hope you are always blessed 

from reading

Needles & Pins!!

Kathy

Fresh Paint...

We have had a few lovely weather days here in eastern North Carolina...84,85,86...

So why not take advantage of being outside and put a fresh coat of paint on our white furniture under the carport? Since we do not have a patio or deck we kinda use our carport as our outdoor space!!

BEFORE

My fern table I found for $16...

and a bench that my daddy made for us.


AFTER

Well, here they are all painted with a fresh coat of white paint!!
And, I must admit, I am a bit "sweaty", or have a "glow" as we say here in the south...


Until next summer, I am done!!

Apple dumplings and microwave corn...

Well, Cliff took off 5 more dozen apples off of our apple tree in the front yard...what to do????

I remembered I had a recipe from a church group in Wisconsin that makes apple dumplings every year to sell.  So I got that recipe out and also decided to  cut the apples in half like another recipe I read recently.

To cut or not to cut ...that is the answer...

I went with cutting since it is suppose to decrease the cooking time...

Placed the cut halves in water to keep from discoloring,

rolled out the pastry, placed two halves on and filled with sugar & cinnamon and butter.

Placed in greased pan and poured sauce over and baked...

WELL...you can see what happened!!!

Most of the dumplings divided when cooked...

only two of six stayed together.

BUT, they did cook quicker than whole!!

Think I will go back to whole apples next year!!

Oh well, they will taste just yummy with a dollop of ice cream on top......

You may wonder why I am showing this photo?!?!?!?!?

It is one of my favorite kitchen items from my parent's house...and yes, it did get cooked on the stove burner...

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Know this trick???...

Wrap corn on the cob in a WET paper towel and microwave for 5 minutes per ear.

Yum, yum!!!

A girlfriend taught me this about 30 years ago when she took a microwave cooking class and it taste better than boiled..

Try it!!!

July 4th Weekend- 2011

We are heading to the beach for the day to swim, eat seafood, and smell the salt air!! We only live about 1 hour & 15 minutes from the coast and it is a lovely drive through the country...and I mean flat, open, green, and sparsely populated country!!! But we love going "the back way"...

( I will try to remember to take some pictures as we go)

(and this is cotton growing in the fields where tobacco used to grow...)

We used to live on our NC coast where I taught school in a small fishing village called Swansboro. We lived on the Intracoastal Waterway, where we watched the yachts going south in the fall and back up in the spring and then on the White Oak River where we saw alligators twice!!

But before we left, I put our flags out to celebrate July 4th, America's Independence Day!!

Here's my little flag pillow that sits in the rocker...

And of course the 4th would not be complete without ...

pickles...I made yesterday but only got enough "free" to make three quarts.

This is an easy recipe that I will post when I get more to make...

and brownies I made last night...one stick of butter and 3 eggs, 2 sq. of chocolate

and they are rich.  You can see we have almost eaten them all!!

HAPPY JULY 4TH EVERYONE...have a safe and restful holiday

in celebrating our nations's wonderful independence!!!