A few more handmade gifts ~ barley hot packs

January 1948 in northern New Hampshire

At our house we love these barley hot packs -- or, as we call them,  simply "barley bags".  They are terrific for soothing sore muscles, cramps, etc.,  or just for warming up a cold bed at night.  In the old days people would heat bricks on the wood stove to serve that latter purpose.  My husband (who is not that old) actually remembers doing this.  Now, heating a barley bag in the microwave can achieve the same result.  You can find the instructions for making them here: How to make barley hot packs.

This Christmas I thought it would be a fine idea to make my two older granddaughters their very own barley bags.  I was right.  They were thrilled and put the hot packs to use that very night.  One hot pack was red plaid:

And one was green plaid:

And I have since made a third one since they thought their mom would like to have one too.

As I mentioned in the directions, I think, over time the barley can take on a scorched aroma.  When that happens, you can open up the place where the bag was hand-stitched shut, dump out the scorched barley, put the empty bag through the washer and dryer, add fresh barley, and stitch it up again.  I just did this with one of ours.  Just like new again!

The pictures can't really convey how warm and cozy these flannel hot packs are.  If it's cold in your neck of the woods, you might want to whip up a few of these!

Reading through the Bible

Again this year, one of my goals is to read through the Bible.  I've done this a number of different times using various methods; you can read about some of them here:  Reading Through the Bible.  I mentioned in that post the staggering statistic that only 5% of Christians have ever read the Bible in its entirety.  That is so hard to believe, when you consider how important God's Word is and how we are commanded to search the scriptures.  For years I was one of the 95% who had not read the Bible through.  Finally I came to the place where I set that as a goal for myself.  That was many years ago, and now I have read it many times over.  Last year I decided not to read through the entire Bible, but just to read through the Gospels repeatedly.  I thought it would be a really good reminder to me of how Jesus handled ministry and the problems of and interactions with people.  It would have been, too, if I had stuck with it, but for whatever reason on the second or third time through I got bogged down in the book of Luke.  So I determined that in 2012 I would read through the entire Bible again.  It's been great!  I'm using a 52-week plan from Revive Our Hearts which breaks the readings down by genre -- prophecy, poetry, history, etc.  It's similar to another plan I've used in the past, but this one is much better organized.  Revive Our Hearts offers a number of free Bible reading plans.  You can check them out here: Bible Reading Plans.  It's still January, not at all too late to jump into reading through God's Word.  You will be glad you did!

Embroidered dish towels

Here's another of the handmade gifts I made this Christmas.  These tea towels were sent to faraway friends who live and work in an RV park on the west coast.  They liked these a lot and have them displayed in their kitchen.  My friend told me she's not using them to dry dishes just yet!

These are just ordinary flour sack towels from Walmart (cut in half and raw edge hemmed).  For the vintage camper design, I used the Camp Out transfers available from Sublime Stitching.  Although the edgier designs on this site don't appeal to me, some of the transfer sets like Camp Out, Forest Friends, etc. are cute.  I have used this camper design a bunch of times and the transfer is still working perfectly.

For the fabric trim, I followed this tutorial at Sew4Home: Fancy Border Tea Towels.  For this project, I chose to use only one fabric for the border.  When I used the same pattern earlier, for trimming bistro towels for my giveaway last fall, I used the two fabrics.  Here is how that looks:

Embroidery is so much fun ... and I love dish towels!  Guess I have simple tastes.

Vintage style pillowcases

 
I thought I would share some of the handmade gifts I sewed for this past Christmas.  A few years ago I found this wonderful tutorial:  How to Make a Vintage-Style Pillowcase
on Pleasant View Schoolhouse
 and loved it.   One neat thing about it is that you can use a more plain or utilitarian fabric for the actual pillowcase and then use a small amount of something more special or fanciful for the trim.

I have made quite a number of these pillowcases for gifts since finding this pattern.  I usually leave off the rickrack, which makes it even easier.  For me the most difficult part of making these is just working with the large expanse of fabric it takes for a pillowcase, and cutting it to the right size.  I made a tracing paper pattern to use, and that does make it easier, but I still struggle with it.   Once the fabric is cut it takes very little time -- between a half hour and an hour -- to put one of these together.  So, here are some of the ones I made this year:

For a two-year-old grandson, a transportation print

With a vintage-y rose border.  I had no idea one could find tea-dyed fabric by the yard, but I found this (the solid) right in Walmart.  The rose print came from there too, from their clearance fabric.  The ribbon came around a box of chocolates and was a perfect match!

And then there are these!  I love this snowy village print!

I am longing to make several sets of these for myself -- maybe even a set for every season.  Perhaps this will be the year I manage to do that!

Turkey Tetrazzini

(Photo by Taste of Home)

I've been meaning to post about this for a good month, but I had plenty of other things to post about in December so decided to wait on sharing the recipe. 

We had a small group (and a large turkey) for Thanksgiving, so we had lots of leftover turkey.  I wanted to make something different, in addition to turkey sandwiches, turkey salad, and of course turkey soup.  I can't believe I've never tried making Turkey Tetrazzini before this year, but apparently I hadn't, as I had to google a recipe for it.  I found a very good one here:  Turkey Tetrazzini at Taste of Home.  We thought this casserole was absolutely delicious, and it is a light recipe as well, though it certainly tastes rich enough.  I used whole wheat spaghetti and it was great.

If you happen to have leftover turkey frozen from the holidays, you might like to try this too!

A blessed New Year to all!

God bless thy year!

Thy coming in, thy going out,

Thy rest,

Thy traveling about,

The rough, the smooth,

The bright, the drear,

God bless thy year!

~ Old English Blessing

 Mr. T and I would like to wish all of my readers and friends a happy, healthy 2012.  Every new year holds challenges, opportunities, blessings, and even heartaches for each one of us.  May this year be one of spiritual growth and encouragement for all of us!

Delights of December Day 31 ~ A Christmas card "kissing ball" project

 

Wow, it is hard to believe we  have gotten through 31 days of December.  I hope that you've all enjoyed this little series of posts as much as I have.  For the final one, I want to share another project from the archives ~ a colorful Christmas card ball.  Many of my readers have seen this, but I imagine there are also many who have not.  Years ago when I was a young mom, a friend of my mother's shared this craft idea with me.  I have made many of these in the forty years or so since then.  If you like, you could even make a non-Christmas decoration out of it -- just use wintry scenes and perhaps just silver and blue Christmas balls for trim along with glitter.

It's true that a kissing ball usually incorporates mistletoe or greens of some sort. However, in our family we hang this colorful decoration made from old Christmas cards in a doorway and we call it a "kissing ball". One of the kids started calling it that, and the name stuck. My husband persists in treating it as if it were mistletoe.

This project is a tiny bit time-consuming in waiting for glue to dry, etc. but it is very easy and a lot of fun to do.

You will need:

Old Christmas cards

A compass or a 3-inch jar lid (for tracing circles)

A pencil or pen

Ruler

Scissors

Mucilage-type glue (the kind with the spreader top)

Paper clips

Glue stick

Glitter

Miniature glass Christmas balls

Tacky glue

Heavy gold (or other) cord for hanging ball

To begin, draw a three-inch circle or two on the back of a Christmas card, and cut these out. These will be your templates. It's a good idea to have more than one, because they get a bit worn down and out of shape if you keep using the same template over and over. You need to also draw an equilateral triangle that just fits inside a 3-inch circle, and cut that out. This triangle will be your template for folding the circles later.

Next, using your circle templates, draw 20 three-inch circles on Christmas card fronts. Try and center the card's picture (or the part of the picture you are using) in the circle. You may be able to get more than one circle per card, depending upon the design. Cut out the circles.

The next part sounds tricky, but it really isn't that difficult. Once you begin, you will understand how it works.

First, make the top of the ball. This takes 5 circles. Using your triangle template, trace a triangle on the back of each circle, with the point uppermost. You will want to make sure that your design is right side up, with the triangle's point at the top. Now, fold along the lines you just made. Crease them well. What you will have is a triangular design framed by half-circle flaps on all three sides.

Now it's time to glue. Take the first two circles and place them side by side with the points of triangles next to each other at the top. Apply the mucilage-type glue to the back of two adjacent side flaps and glue them together. Secure with paper clips which will hold the flaps together until they dry. Continue until all 5 pieces are glued together. Then glue the two remaining side flaps together. You will see that this forms a cap-like piece, or maybe an upside down bowl. Paper-clip the last two glued flaps and set the piece aside to dry.

Next, make the bottom of the ball with 5 more circles. This time, trace your triangle so that the point is at the bottom of your design. Again, be sure the design is right side up, but with the triangle's point at the bottom. Fold and crease as before.

Glue as for top, but this time you glue them side by side with the points of triangles next to each other at the bottom. Paper-clip the flaps together as you glue. Finished bottom piece will resemble a bowl. Set aside to dry.

Now make the middle section, using the remaining 10 circles. This time you will trace 5 triangles with the points up (design right side up) and 5 triangles with the points down (again, with the design right side up). Fold and crease as before.

As you have probably guessed, the positioning and gluing of the middle section is different from the top and bottom. Place a point-up triangle next to a point-down one, and so on, alternating between the two. Glue and clip adjacent flaps as you go. At the end, glue and clip the remaining flap of the last piece to the unglued side flap of the first piece. Set aside to dry.

(Are you thinking this is a lot of work? It's simple work, though, and I promise the finished product will be very pretty.)

When all three pieces are dry, remove all of the paper clips. Don't put them away, though -- you'll need them again.

Now, glue the bottom flaps of your top piece to the top flaps of the middle section, paper-clipping as you go. And then glue the top flaps of the bottom piece to the bottom flaps of the middle section, again paper-clipping as you go along. Set the completed ball aside to dry.

When it's dry, now is the time to add glitter. (Remove all of the paper clips before proceeding with this step.) You can use whatever color glitter you like. I usually use gold or silver, but one time, for an elderly aunt who collected Santas, I used all Santa cards for the ball and used red glitter. Anyway, to add glitter, hold the ball over a disposable pie pan or other throwaway container. Use the glue stick to add glue to each flap of the completed ball, and then sprinkle the gluey surface with glitter. Shake off excess.

Now, for the finishing touch. You've probably noticed that there are openings where the folded circles don't quite meet. You are about to fix that! For each of these openings, dip the hanger end of a miniature Christmas ball in tacky glue. Carefully insert these glued ends into each opening except for the opening at the top of the ball.

Make a loop of cord to use as a hanging loop. Tie the cord ends in a sturdy knot. Dip the knot in tacky glue and carefully insert the knot into the opening at the top of the ball.

Set the ball aside until all the glue is dry.

Hang your new decoration in a hallway, window, or from a ceiling fixture -- and enjoy its festive sparkle!

Although the ball doesn't show up really well in this picture, you can see how nice it looks in a doorway.

*  I should add that you can also make these smaller, by using 1 1/2-inch circles, and hang them on the Christmas tree.  You wouldn't add the miniature ornaments to these, but probably just glitter.  If you wanted to put something in the tiny spaces where the flaps meet, you could easily use beads.  *