needle & thREAD

Hello, sewing friends!

I welcome you to needle and thREAD. What have you been sewing lately? Or are you embroidering? Pulling a needle with thread through lovely fabric to make life more beautiful somehow? Would you share with us just a single photo (or more) and a brief description of what you're up to? Will you tell us about what you're reading, also? Would you talk sewing and books with us? I'd love that so much.

Make sure the link you submit is to the URL of your blog post or your specific Flickr photo and not your main blog URL or Flickr Photostream. Please be sure and link to your current needle and theREAD post below in the comments, and not a needle and theREAD post from a previous week. If you don't have a blog, please post a photo to the needle & thREAD group at Flickr. Do visit the Flickr page. There's some amazing needlework there.

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I've read two Grace Livingston Hill books in the last week (much reading between soccer games--bliss out in the sunshine, on a blanket, under an umbrella). The first, The Mystery of Mary, was like a novella you'd expect to find in a women's magazine. There was very little plot or character development and it was fairly implausible. It didn't take long to read it, though, so I'm none the worse for the wear. The second, A Voice in the Wilderness, was far better. The storyline was more believable than The Enchanted Barn, the first GLH I read. Set in the Arizona desert, the cast of characters was well developed and the plot was strong. There were lots of little nuggets I enjoyed.

Grace Livingston Hill has a definite "formula." Young women of strong Christian character and independent spirit bring dashing young men to the Lord and the young men, in turn, protect and defend them in the moment and forever. It's wholesome entertainment, I suppose, but this week, I'm going to take a little GLH break and look at some of your other suggestions from previous weeks.

After I finish putting my house in order.  :-)

Incidentally, I think that GLH does inspire attention to homemaking and that's a very fine thing. There's also a wonderful inspiration to feminine loveliness. 

I'm also powering through Hail, Holy Queen because I promised myself that I'd read it this May. And I only have a few hours left. 

I haven't gotten much sewing done--actually no sewing at all. I have managed to wash fabric and trace patterns and cut out one of the six jumpers I have planned. I promised the little girls two sundresses each by mid-June. So, beginning tomorrow, sewing binge:-) 

Hold me to it, friends. Next week's post should have much sewing and perhaps a wee bit less reading.

When the world seems dark and your soul feels cold

The day shone brightly upon us, sun glinting off the lake, all a promise of summer’s dawn. Still, she shivered in the warmth and pulled a gray, hooded sweat jacket tightly around her.

“I just don’t feel it. I don’t feel God. I don’t feel the presence of the Holy Spirit. I feel bone dry. And, well, cold.” Another shiver and a tug on her zipper. Please read the rest here.

Sometimes I have to stop and take a day or two (or three)

to gather my thoughts and order my environment. To change seasons and adapt my rhythm with grace and dignity. Or, to just order my kids around and clean and de-clutter in a frantic frenzy until I can stop hyperventilating.

Some notes on that:

Blessed the husband of a good wife,
    twice-lengthened are his days;
A worthy wife brings joy to her husband,
    peaceful and full is his life.
A good wife is a generous gift
    bestowed upon him who fears the LORD;
Be he rich or poor, his heart is content,
    and a smile is ever on his face.

A gracious wife delights her husband,
    her thoughtfulness puts flesh on his bones;
A gift from the LORD is her governed speech,
    and her firm virtue is of surpassing worth.
Choicest of blessings is a modest wife,
    priceless her chaste soul.
A holy and decent woman adds grace upon grace;
    indeed, no price is worthy of her temperate soul. 
Like the sun rising in the LORD's heavens,
    the beauty of a virtuous wife in her well-ordered home.
-from the Book of Sirach

A Homemaker's Prayer
 May I have the strength and the will to do the humble tasks, that make a house a fit abode for my loved ones. Clean floors, shining china, dainty curtains, clean sheets, good food, a cheery fire-may my willing hands make these things possible.
But Father, let me remember that man does not live by bread alone, that material things but make a proper setting for life's real treasures of mind and spirit. Give me patience and understanding and kindness and humor and love in abundance, and charity for all. May the spirit of happiness, of joys and sorrows shared, of unity, of the peace that passeth understanding linger here! Help me to keep the path to Thee open and easy to find for the little ones in my keeping. And let there be laughter here.
And last, dear Lord, help me to remember the stranger without the door. May there be warmth enough on our hearth to share with him.
Is this too much for one so weak, so full of faults as I, to ask? At least it can be a goal toward which to strive, and to Thee all things are possible. Amen

-Mrs. Howard Peet 

Prayer to St. Anne for Homemakers
Dear St. Anne, we know nothing about you except your name. But you gave us the Mother of God who called herself handmaid of the Lord. In your home you raised the Queen of Heaven and are rightly the model of homemakers. In your womb came to dwell the new Eve uniquely conceived without sin. Intercede for us that we too may remain free from sin. Amen.

More Links to inspire your  clean-sweeping:

Cocooning and Flying Free

My Not So Simple Life 

More on simplicity

Rhythm and Prayer

On Being Intentional and Making Lists

Why Bother with Cleaning? (But then, be sure to read this one and this one, too;-)

Laundry, Linens and Love

Homemaking Companion Notebook (with lots of forms to use, if you like)

More Home Management Notebook Links  

The entire homemaking archives in the Heart of my Home. 

 

Here's some chatting about Cleaning and Simplifying  at the Faith and Family Livecast!

Podcast Notes:

Simplicity Parenting. A very thoughtful parenting book. I It's not Catholic, but it's just good, plain common sense. Combine it with Lifeline, for a simple parenting library. Very simple;-).

CrazyBusy, Overstretched, Overbooked and About to Snap! This is lifestyle simplification for adults.

Simplifying Your Domestic Church a beautiful, thoroughly Catholic guide to bringing simplification principles to your environment.

Keep it Simple: The Busy Catholic's guide to growing closer to God. This is simplicity for your prayer life.

Homemaking Prayers

A Homemaking Library:

Join Me for Tea
Home-Making
Open Heart, Open Home
Martha to the Max: Balanced Living for Perfectionists
Splendor in the Ordinary
Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World
Holiness for Housewives
Mothers and Daughters at Home

I'll be back here on Thursday for needle & thREAD! 

Lord, Hear Our Prayer

The internet is a formidable force for bringing the comfort and consolation and hope of the Lord to all of us. It can be an incredibily powerful medium for community. There is an unfathomable resource for prayer here. We have on the 'net the privilege of praying for people and of being witness to the miracles brought forth when fervent, faith-fulled people pray for one another.

Let's be that community of hope and faith for one another.

How about this idea? What if I pop in here every weekend, share Sunday's gospel and talk a wee bit about how we can live it and pray it in our homes? And then you tell me how we can pray for you that week? Deal?

{And please, do return and let us know how prayer is bearing fruit.}

{iPhone image from early morning prayer walk yesterday.}

Gospel 

Jn 20:19-23

On the evening of that first day of the week,
when the doors were locked, where the disciples were,
for fear of the Jews,
Jesus came and stood in their midst
and said to them, "Peace be with you."
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.
The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me, so I send you."
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,
"Receive the Holy Spirit.
Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,
and whose sins you retain are retained."

Or Jn 15:26-27; 16:12-15

Jesus said to his disciples:
"When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father,
the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father,
he will testify to me.
And you also testify,
because you have been with me from the beginning.

"I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.
But when he comes, the Spirit of truth,
he will guide you to all truth.
He will not speak on his own,
but he will speak what he hears,
and will declare to you the things that are coming.
He will glorify me,
because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.
Everything that the Father has is mine;
for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine
and declare it to you."

Think

“Our works are in no way comparable in greatness to the tree of glory they produce. Still they have the vigor and virtue to produce it because they proceed from the Holy Spirit. By a wondrous infusion of His grace into our hearts He makes our works become His and yet at the same time lets them remain our own, since we are members of a Head of which he is the Spirit and since we are engrafted on a tree of which He is the divine sap.”

~ ~ ~

“When the Holy Spirit, who dwells within us, wishes to make our soul docile, tractable and obedient to his divine movements and heavenly inspirations, which are the laws of his love, he gives us seven properties and perfections . They are called the gifts of the Holy Spirit...These gifts are inseparable from charity. Charity is made up of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit as of so many sacred steps. They are: wisdom, understanding, science, counsel, fortitude, piety, fear."

-St. Francis de Sales

Pray

 Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth. 

O, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, Through Christ Our Lord, Amen.

Act

It's a big deal feast day! Have a party! 

A salad with seven fruits is a good beginning...

Family Recipes: Roasted Beets in Balsamic Vinaigrette

This one is for Kristin.

Beets “bleed,” so to keep the juices in while they cook, leave on the skins, the roots on the bottom, and at least an inch of the green stems. It’s especially pretty to cook both red and yellow beets. You don’t want the colors to bleed on to each other, so you may want to cook and handle them separately. After they’re cooked, peel the beets over a bowl, since beet juice stains are nearly impossible to remove from wood or plastic surfaces. Expect that your hands will be stained. (Never, ever let a child help while wearing white without an apron. Just sayin'. I found these pictures on my computer. They're fairly old. I have no idea what I was thinking that day.)

This makes enough for a summer side dish for 4 people. Toss with toasted pecans and crumbled goat cheese.

OR

Roasted beets are really good in a salad of mixed greens; the marinade makes a salad dressing.

8 medium beets (about 2 pounds total)
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup olive oil
6 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 to 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, to taste
1 teaspoon sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

2. Trim the beets, leaving on the skin, an inch of the stem, and the tail on the bottom of each, then scrub and drain. Place the beets in a small casserole dish just big enough to hold them. Pour the water and olive oil over the beets then cover tightly with a lid or aluminum foil and bake until tender and easily pierced with a sharp paring knife, about 1 ½ hours.  (Honest disclaimer: I often do this in a disposable pan. The beet juice carmelizes, which is delicious, and incredibly hard to clean off the pan.)

3. Remove the casserole from the oven and uncover the beets carefully, keeping your face and hands away from the steam. Let them cool completely in the dish.

4. Meanwhile, combine the vinegar, 2 tablespoons of the olive oil, the salt, and pepper in a medium-size bowl and whisk to blend. Taste and add more olive oil, if desired.

5. Peel the cooled beets with the back of a paring knife and cut into ½-inch slices. Add to the dressing in the bowl and toss gently but thoroughly to coat. Marinate in the refrigerator, for up to 24 hours.

{Please pretend there is a picture of beautiful beets here. There isn't. We ate them. The beets, not the pictures.}