Fog Report

Daisies in a Field

from Allposters.com

Today's Fog

I know everyone is waiting for the next fog report. It has been a very dark day, so I have created a sunny afternoon tea.

In the fog, one lone English Daisy has appeared. There will be a whole field of them soon.

I have picked some daffodils that have come  up in the cold weather. The lady who first lived here planted them decades ago and they still surround the property every March. It is snowing in some areas of the country, and I'm always amazed at how some flowers thrive most in the colder weather.  Today I have patted a scone mixture into a square cake pan and sliced it into rectangles for lemon curd treats.

I have taken a few moments to look at the new edition of Victoria Classics, now available at WalMart for 10 percent off the cover price.  This issue is all about Britain. The photographs are lovely. It is so nice to sit here in this gloom and read about other places.

I have some battery operated candles that flicker cheerfuly through the darkness. Hopefully I will soon be experiencing brighter days.

The tea is made from a fresh squeezed lemon, honey and hot water. I thought the color matched the light lemon yellow table cloth. This is a scrap of the fleece fabric that I am going to use for a coat or cape or shawl, when I get the time.  On top the fabric I've place a small piece of sparkly yellow tulle, a sheer fabric that I plan to use when making the fascinator, as in previous fog posts.

The teacup was found at a second-hand store and it is made by a company called Duchess.

In gloomy weather, grief or hard times, you might appreciate this poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, where he gives encouragement to be "up and doing."

A Psalm of Life

Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, - act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sand of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

American 1807-1882

Here is a verse that reflects the comfort that comes from above, in any circumstances, foggy or sunny!

2 Corinthians 1:3

Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort...

Protecting Your Time

Coming Home by Susan Rios

As there are many women now choosing to stay home, I think it would be a good idea to address the issue of protecting your time at home. 

There can be a tendency in women to rescue everyone who has a problem. This is due to the fact that they are created to be helpers and to take care of those less fortunate than themselves. They also want to make life easier for their fellow human-beings.

Women were created with that "helping" instinct so that they could help their husbands and children.  Some new homemakers  may  not yet have arrived at a good understanding of how to fill their day and or how to guard their emotional health. Or, they may  feel responsible to to make the world a better place. There is nothing wrong with these desires, but I wish to send out a caution about allowing your time to be taken by other causes and worries.

The Afternoon Read

by Paul Fischer

  God gave women these caring instincts to be used within the family, in caring for the children and in aiding their husbands in their goals in life.  Sometimes, though, a woman's mind can get caught up in other people's drama or just the issues brought up daily on the news, which is just one scary thing after another.  Soon, a woman can feel very guilty and unintelligent if she is not trying to do something to improve the world.

Naturally there should be some time set aside for other people outside the home: for phone calls, letters, visits, and so forth, but it is not wise to be too wound up in their problems to the exclusion of your family. It is easy to get obsessed about a subject or a person. 

A woman at home  can always make it appear that she has been keeping house all day, by rushing through jobs at the last minute. Maybe she has spent a day worried about the news, and still manages to get dinner ready before the family all convenes together. Maybe she still manages to do the grocery shopping but has her mind on other problems.  She could give so much more quality to her home life if she had her heart in it and was not distracted by these other things.

Sweet Fragrance

by Susan Rios

The young women need to preserve their mental and physical energy for their families. One thing they may not realize when they are young, is that their strength will not always be there for them if they use it up on other problems. Many young women are tired, and lagging in their housework. They have used up their mental alertness on other issues that have nothing to do with improving their homes.  Young women may not realize that their tiredness is in part, due to the amount of time they spend thinking about other problems.  

Spending great chunks of their time on problems outside of their own homes can one day bring on great regret and grief, when they think back and wonder what happened to all the time. Children in the home will never be that young again. Each day, they grow older, and the previous day cannot be brought back. Although her family may not even notice that her mind is occupied by problems outside of her own home, she herself might one day be sorry that she did not concentrate more fully on her family or her home.

Homeschool mothers need to be particularly careful and wary of time-stealers. As you begin to homeschool, other people seem drawn to you and what you are doing and want to be a part of it. This may not be true for every one, (in some cases you become more isolated as people reject you, which can be a blessing), but for some, they find out that people think they have free time. After all, they do not see you conducting a strict school-like atmosphere, and do not understand the value of your time alone with your children.  Homeschooling is also very adjustable. People will want you to collect money for United Way or other causes, because they think you have the time. You may have the time, but the care and worry of it adds to your stress. Families can attend events on school days and make up for it later. Homeschool mothers can find that there is so much to do at church and in the world, because other families are not available to do it and they may stretch their time and emotions thin, trying to do it all. They feel it is selfish not to help the rest of the world, but they miss out on their own rest, which they badly need.

Flower Arrangement on a Candle Stick

from Victorian Trading Co. catalog

Older women may become very sensitive to stress from others who will impose on her time. While they may be at home without children or without a lot of responsibilities, others may pressure them to socialize more. If you are a stitcher, or a creative person, you will need a lot of free time. Getting too caught up in social things or in the latest gloom-and-doom news forcast, can rob you of that time for your mind to rest and re-create.  I am not suggesting that we become neglectful of people we need to care for, nor am I saying that we should not be aware of things that are going on in the world, but that the time at home needs to be guarded, lest whole days slip away and nothing gets done at home. 

Children sometimes sense when their mother is not being herself, is tense, worried, or getting obsessed with something.   A mother needs to have a clear mind and be focused and present, not preoccupied with fears, or with the situation in other people's homes. Children can tell when their mother is distracted and discontent with the task at home. 

It is important to preserve the time God has given you and not allow other problems to take over your life.

Give Yourself the Gift of Time

If you allow too many other things to get in your mind, you will lose the sense of who you really are. You may find your creativity is stifled or that you cannot enjoy your life. Your personal relationship with God will suffer if you take the time you would normally spend with Him and His Word, and let it be used up in other ways.

The older women are no less susceptible in this problem of letting their time get used up. Sometimes people think that because a woman is home, she is available to everyone.  She may feel guilty that she is home, and that she has a good life, and cannot say no to those who would impose on her time. She feels it would be selfish to have time to herself. 

It is important to spend time in your own house without outside stress.

 Older women need to make it a priority to take care of themselves. If they get too tired or tense they can lose their health. 

To help the rest of the world, to help others and to be charitable, women can begin at home. Here are some ways to do that without losing health or neglecting the home.

A Meaningful Day, by Susan Rios

* Showing hospitality is one way of helping others who need cheering up, but it, too, must be approached with moderation, being careful not to put too much distress on the family or neglecting the husband in order to entertain other people. Guests in your home can be strongly influenced to provide a happy home for their families. Setting aside specific time for company or to talk to a friend, will help free up the rest of your time for home things.

*Providing yourself with mental interests that compliment your homemaking endeavors. Read things that will help you appreciate home life.   Choose colorful books that are a pleasure to look at, containing information on many different subjects. 

*Direct lonely times into personal interests that build you up rather than drain your mental and physical energy. Sewing or reading, music, art and many other things can be very fulfilling if they are done for relaxation.  Sometimes women at home think that they cannot have any rest, and must be always working, but leisure is a very, very important aspect of reviving yourself. To neglect it is not wise. Allowing other problems to absorb this time can mean future exhaustion.

*Paying attention to the manners and training of your own children is a great contribution to the world. When they become Christians, as adults they will spread their influence to others who will be converted to Christ. This is something you can do for the world right in your own home, which becomes your own ministry.

*Fulfilling the scripture's admonition to be keepers of the home really does help make the world a better place. If you care about your country's reputation, you'll be very conscientious about the way you keep your house and personal property.

*Send out notecards as a way of serving others from your home. Make a little extra something when you are   sewing, so that you always have gifts ready if they are needed. Protecting your time does  not mean neglecting those who are in need. There are so many ways of blessing others without neglecting your home. In some places, grocery stores will deliver, for a fee, a phone order of groceries to someone. While it is great to do it yourself, I think that the young women with children at home really need to be careful not to take on too many other responsibilities. I have seen young mothers sometimes try to "save the world" who are always involved in some activity, and unable to really be homemakers and homebodies for their children.

Colossians 4:5 says to walk with wisdom around those who are outside of the faith, and redeem the time. (Just run your arrow over the scripture citation and the verse will appear.)  To redeem something means to regain possession of it, or to free it.  Homemakers really do need to be cautious about allowing their time to be put into captivity. If they do not practice protecting it, they might find it slipping away, and they will lose that sense of freedom that a woman at home is supposed to feel. When you commit big sections of time to something that drains your mental and physical energy to the point of becoming burnt-out, you have allowed that time to be captured. Redeem it by freeing it.

An English Poppy Field by Bernard Willington

from allposters

When homemakers take on too many problems outside of their own homes, there can be signs of social stress, such as:

-Inability to concentrate on simple tasks at home

-Words become jumbled and thoughts disjointed

-Unable to relax or unable to sleep

-No longer participating in things that once were interested in

-Children more fussy and noisy

-Thoughts constantly on someone's problems

-Making a cozy home is not as interesting.

-Feeling rushed all the time, in meal preparation and other housekeeping

-Not getting to the grocery store early enough and when there, not able to concentrate on what you need to get. Reading something on a label or sign but not really seeing it.

-Breathing is not normal, and tightness in chest from so much stress.

-Only time to do surface housekeeping. No time to sew, no time to clean a shelf, no time to read a book.

-No time to pay attention to your appearance--just rushing through the morning with a quick brush of the hair, neglecting your appearance.

The Small Garden 11 by Henry John Yeend King

Husbands can take a big role in providing peace and safety at home for their wives by helping to protect their time. They can reassure their wives that they are perfectly happy to have them at home and that there is no need to feel they have to fill up their time with projects for other people, or pressure-filled home businesses. The most helpful thing a man can do is reassure his wife that she is acceptable and important if she has energy only for house work and if she wants to spend some time baking a cake or sewing a dress or reading a book. As long as she is home, she is not obligated to fill up her time with causes and things that rob her of rest and relaxation. Men can also create things to make life easier in the home for their wives, from building needed organizational shelves, to installing convenient things to make kitchen and laundry room work easier. They can also keep the home in good repair and add things that make life comfortable, to take the stress off the woman at home.

Sadly, there are men who do not understand the value of a woman just being home, even if she is sitting down and reading, or sewing, or baking a cake. The pressure of the world to make money and pay your own way is upon them, and they think women should always be making money or they have no value. If a man truly cherishes his wife he will insist that she take time out to rest and to pursue things she loves, just for the pleasure of them, such as sewing or decorating or watching her favorite movies. It is too bad that many young women at home think that they cannot do anything unless it is work, but it is an important part of life to have some leisure. It strengthens you for doing your work more energetically. Women will find they are much more productive in their housekeeping when they give themselves time to take tea and read their mail.

There are good reasons that God provided for Christian women to be occupied with the home. For one thing, it reduces the demands that other people put on her time. However, sometimes if she is not careful, she can allow this same kind of imposition at home.  A woman at home also has the opportunity to regulate herself without schedules and rules being placed upon her by a business. If she is not careful, she can get allow other things to regulate her.  At home, a woman is free to come and go as she pleases, but too much social pressure can limit her freedom.  

There is nothing wrong with staying home and resting, or doing as you like, and it is good to protect that time, and to be wary of trying to fill up with other causes so that you really are not able to enjoy being home.

Here is a good idea if you want to remind yourself to preserve the time: Write on a chalkboard the words: "Redeem the time."

P.S. Of course the homemakers and the homeschoolers, women old and young, are very well informed and educated about the political process. They in fact, are the best watchers of the political process. I believe that we should always be alert about what is going on so we can protect our families. What I'm warning about is taking so much time for it that your housework and family are not getting the best part of you.

To print this article for your notebook, go here.

You might also like to read  "Unnecessary Stress."

This Week's Fog Fashion and Tea

Ladies at 19th Century Railway Station

(from allposters.com)

I included the painting, above, because I liked the sage green and the lavender suits of the Victorian women pictured in it.  The green one is like Marilla's go-to-town suit in the movie "Anne of Green Gables." Of course, I am thinking of ways to make that lovely peplum (the flared piece on the waist of the jacket) in a future sewing project. I also like the way they put the floral pieces  underneath  their hats, as well as on top.  Notice the round box and the trunk that is being pushed by the porter.

Marilla Cuthbert  in her sage green suit, walking with Anne (Anne of Green Gables movie)

Marilla wearing the sage jacket, seen here with her brother Matthew. My favorite quote of Matthew is "Marilla, we've got no call to raise this girl as cheer-less as we were raised!" 

If you want to get a better view of the peplum (ruffle) in the back of her suit, you will just have to see the movie.

Now back to the fog.

Today's Fog

This week I have completed a short hooded cape made from the thin fleece from a rhuana shawl which I had shown in a previous post. Since there was no stitching on that shawl, I was able to lay the fabric out on the cutting table and use it again to make this cape.

The hood is lined with lightweight white muslin.

The pattern is a shortened version of  View A, on the right (the brown cape with hood) of the above photo, with an added ruffle around the front edge of the hood. This pattern might not be available anymore, but there are plenty of updated patterns like it. The cape you see at the bottom right is called a rhuana shawl, like the ones I made in previous posts. 

The hair clip is made with a small strip of the fabric, gathered into an oval, and hot glued to

a hair clip, which comes in a bag of several sizes at the fabric stores or Walmart. If you have thick hair, the large clip works well and it is also tight enough to prevent the hair clip from slipping off the hair.

On it I put one of those fabric roses which I showed in a previous post on the fog series, with a string of plastic pearl beads, also found in sewing stores. All are hot-glued to the ruffled piece. There is no hemming or finishing of the raw edges, because fleece does not ravel. However, I did hem the edges of the cape, for a more finished look and to strengthen the edges. This clip is strong enough and tight enough to clasp all of my hair in a bun.

First I glued a doubled strip of fabric on to the top of the hair clip, to give it a base. Then, I glued the completed ruffle on to that, and then I added the string of beads and the fabric rose. There are many instructions online for making these fabric roses, so I will not do a tutorial here.  It is time for tea, anyway.

Tea today is in front of the fire. Someone reminded me to include this article on the virtues of taking tea at home, which is well worth the time to read. I like the part where she states how it reduces hunger between meals so that you can have a more calm approach to making dinner. If everyone is not so hungry, you do not have to feel so rushed to make the evening meal. 

These are some of the colorful primroses in the garden centers now. They thrive in cold weather, so this one is going back outside after it serves as a centerpiece on the tea table.

I have served tea-of-your-choice with my oat squares.

I had no flour in the pantry so I put oats in the little coffee grinder (by the way, if you purchase a coffee grinder to refine flour and oats and other grains, if you also grind coffee in it and the coffee flavor gets into other things you grind, you shoud get a separate one for the coffee beans.)

You might need to double this recipe.

1 stick (half cup) butter melted

1 cup finely ground oats (it should be as fine as flour)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/8 cup molasses

1/8 teaspoon grated orange or lemon peel.

Mix it all together and add more flour if the mixture is too liquid-y. Pat it all into a cookie sheet  and bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. It should be thin and wafer-like--not too thick. When done, it should be brown around the edges.  While warm, cut it into squares.  You can alter this recipe in many ways.

No one came to tea today and my  young photographer could only stay briefly, so I made it just for you. I hope you enjoy the blog-food ;-)

Just after I posted this, someone who was inspired to do the same, sent me this photo of her tea setting:

She has set this up for tomorrow. We both have these small electric fireplaces that we just turn the light on without the heater part, to enjoy without the expense. The light bulb used in these heaters is just a night-light.

The cost of the fabric for the hooded cape was about four dollars, and, I like every thing about it except the length. I think  the longer ones fit me better, but I wanted to try this. This a a bright white, unlike the vanilla white of a previous cape I made. This one is a very nice snow white and took one and a half yards of 60 inch fabric.

I'm looking for light lemon yellow now so I can dress like a lemon pie ;-)

I have finished lining the hood of the lavender ruffled-hood cloak and made a matching fascinator. I posted pictures of it on the previous post, here. 

I must emphasize again how nice it is to use the thinnest and cheapest fleece for these projects. They sew up a lot faster and do not bog down a regular machine like the thick fleece does.

 If you are wanting to make something with fleece and are not a confident stitcher, just to go Walmart and buy a fourth yard of fleece and experiment with it on some small things, such as a purse, a stretchy headband (keeping in mind that this $2.96 a yard fleece only has a one-way stretch), a hat, a pillow with a fringe, or child's toy.

 The lower the price, the thinner the fleece, usually, and the thicker the fleece, the higher the price. I have sewn with the thick fleece and it truly makes a great big warm coat but I find it too bulky, so I'm enjoying using thin fleece. I have one more piece someone gave me that I want to make, before I end the fleece projects.

There is one color I have been looking for, but have not been able to find, so I will be using the piece I have left, a cherry red, for the next fleece project. 

 The fog is turning into rain recently and there have been a few storms. I saw some water-proof type fabrics that just came into the fabric section and I'm curious to know what it is like to sew it, so I may be having rain-tea and fashion.

Fog Cape and Tea

Fog today was a purplish-blue, and I found just the perfect color of  fleece to make an historical cape called the Kinsale Cloak:

This shows the color of the cape in a brief moment of sun. The lower half of the cape that is shaded, shows more the true color of the fabric.

If you are inspired to sew fleece, my best advice is to get the thinnest fleece possible so that a double layer of it will fit easily through your machine presser-foot. It is also possible that you will have as many as four layers to sew on some parts of the garment, so the cheapest, thinnest fleece is the best. Besides that, sewing a garment from thick fleece can become very heavy and overly warm, even without lining, facings and double layers. This applies only if you do not live in a freezing winter climate, where, of course, the thicker fleece would be a lot better. 

 I got this at Walmart for about $2.95 a yard, and since it is 60 inches wide, I did not need very much. The cost was $11.00.

The cloak was supposed to look like this one, above, a pattern from Folkwear.

The sketches show what it looks like with variations. The hood is supposed to also serve as a collar and shoulder cape when you let out the draw-strings.

Since I did not have the actual Folkwear pattern, I used this one that I got when Simplicity was on sale for 99cents.   I've kept it a few years just waiting for a time when I could make it, and I spent some time making this on one of these final foggy days here.

 I hate to see the fog go away, since I've got two or three more sewing items planned, and not all of them are out-door wear.

The cape is actually quite full in the back, which does not show in this photo because I've drawn it up towards the front. The pattern did not have arm holes, so I left part of the seam open for that.

I have not hemmed this yet, but wanted to get a photograph in the small amount of light today.

Above: the hood forms a yoke on the shoulder area. On a scale of one, to five, the highest being five, I would say the "sewing frustration" level of the cape was a five, so do not attempt this if you are not a patient, experienced seamstress, unless you are wanting to become more advanced.

 The cape itself is easy, but the hood was not, and I had to undo my sewing several times to get it right. I am not really finished with it yet, but wanted to update my blog with the beautiful photographs of the fog and the flowers.  I still have to put a hem in this garment and line the hood so that when it falls down into a little cape over the shoulders, the seams will not show.

This is a field of those beautiful violas that thrive in fog.

Here are some of the light purple violas, at my feet, and the color is the perfect match for my cape, which is what I was trying to achieve. The fragrance of these flowers is, as near as I can describe it, like candy, or "cotton candy, "--fairy floss, as they call it in other countries.

Some light lavender violas with the dark purple in the background.

Two different shades of violas close up. I was trying to remember the color of the lightest one, and found it quite easy to choose it at the store, just by picking the purple that had the least pink in it, and the most gray. Up close, the viola matches the cape perfectly. I'm trying to make a bouquet of these with felt.

To make little hair pins with flowers on them, count the petals on the flower and cut out a paper pattern, as you see at the bottom of the photograph. You can do the same thing with the snowdrop flowers.

Take a tiny strip of fabric and cut it into a point at one end. tie that end in a knot, dab it with hot glue or use a needle and thread, as you roll it down the strip to make a center. You only need to roll it about twice, and then clip off the excess strip.

Lay that little bud you just made, in the middle of the three or four-petal flowers and just sew or hot-glue a couple of the petals halfway up onto that center bud. You can glue or sew the other petals onto the center too, only not as tightly, since you want some of the petals to fall down, as they do on the real flower. Insert hair pins through the spaces between the glue and the petals at the base of the flower.

This is just  a quick hair style  showing what you might do with the hair pins: put them along the side of a twist hair do, or on top.  This style is completely held in place by the hair pins with the flowers at the end of them.

For this hairstyle:  Twist hair into a french roll. The way I do it, is to just let my hair hang down my back and grasp all of it except a few strands on one side, and twist it until it coils upward on itself.

 Then I use one of those hair pins, pictured, or a tiny claw clip, to secure the last little twisted strand on the top of the head. Hint: the smaller the claw clip, the better it stays in the hair and the less it weighs down and drags down an up-do. 

 After securing the top I pin or claw-clip the side of the twist every few inches, on that one side. It is not necessary to pin the other side. 

 If you have difficulty getting your hair to stick, you can rub some kind of setting lotion between your hands and then run your hands through the loose hair, and then twist the hair into a roll.

 Treat the front anyway you like, either pulled into the twist, or parted to one side, or in a fluffly fringe.

Above: I am  still working on a facinator head band with both the light and dark violas and the dark green leaves.

And now here is the tea,

...served on a table cloth made of a scrap of that lavender fleece fabric. The tea is made with frozen blackberries and the cake is a pumpkin spice cake made with molasses, and topped with berry whipped cream. We have, in the past, called flavored whipped cream "chantilly."

In a Canadian recipe book called "Company's Coming" by Jean Pare', the chantilly creams are as follows:

Almond, berry, brandy, butterscotch, chocolate, cointreau, ginger, maple, mint, orange, vanilla, cheesecake.

All these creams are just whipped cream with flavorings. I made up the berry chantilly cream, as it was not in the cookbook, but I am sure others have done it. 

There might be an opportunity for me to get better pictures of the cloak, and if so, I'll certainly post them here.

I will try the McCalls cloak pattern 4698 next time, as the hood looks less complicated.

Here are some more photos of the this cloak sewing project:

The hood or bonnet section is lined with a muslin which I dyed to match the light purple fabric. This is what the hood looks like when the gathering ribbons are released. It is supposed to look like a shoulder cape.

When the draw strings are pulled up, the hood is a ruffled collar around the neckline.

This is what the fascinator (a head band decorated with various things to look like a hat) looks like.

The roses are made from the same fleece, with some violet ones added. All of them set atop green fleece leaves and the whole thing is perched atop a strip of gathered voile. Hot glue is used to secure it all.