Abbie and Mrs. Brown, Author at blossomsandposies.com

Irish Soda Bread

Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day… and what could be a simpler bread recipe than Irish Soda Bread? This recipe has only 5 ingredients and no rising time. From start to a lovely loaf takes only one hour! Ingredients 4 cups flour 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda 1 1/2 teaspoons salt 1 1/2 cups milk 2 tablespoons lemon juice Directions Preheat oven to 375°. Pour lemon juice into milk and stir. Whisk flour, baking soda and salt together in a large bowl. Make a well in the flour mixture and stir in the milk/lemon juice. Dump the dough out […] Read more »

Shepherd’s Pie

By Abbie and Mrs. Brown · 2 Comments

If you get our newsletter, you’ve already heard about Pi Day and that we like to celebrate it because, well… pie! But maybe Pi Day is new to you, so let us educate. You see, pi is a mathematical constant usually rounded to 3.14. It’s a pretty important number in the world of numbers. So when some clever fellow realized we have a 3.14 on the calendar (aka March 14), Pi Day was born. To celebrate Pi Day you could recite pi. Abbie knows pi to 50 digits. This guy knows Pi to 100,000 digits. Can you imagine? Or you […] Read more »

Knitting Basics: How to Wind a Ball of Yarn

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How to Wind a Yarn Ball - BlossomsAndPosies.com

Sometimes yarn is sold in units wound in such a way that you can knit or crochet from them immediately. But often yarn is sold in skeins. These skeins of yarn need to be wound into balls in order to knit them easily. If you don’t wind them first, you will end up with a giant tangled mess of yarn! If you buy your yarn in a nice yarn shop you can ask them to wind it for you, which they will do with a yarn swift and a yarn winder. But if you forget (or buy it online,) you’ll […] Read more »

Kleenex Lily – Flower Craft

By Abbie and Mrs. Brown · 1 Comment

kleenex lily tutorial - BlossomsAndPosies.com

I learned how to make kleenex lilies from the teacher at my art class when I was six years old. There are lots of different variations you can make. You don’t have to use a glitter pipe cleaner like I did, it’s just what we had. Regular green pipe cleaners will work as well. Also, you can make them with more layers of kleenex, with less or no pollen, or you can make the tips of the pollen different by cutting little slits in the paper or coloring the edges with a marker. There are hundreds of different variations you […] Read more »

Basic Knitting: Long Tail Cast-On

By Abbie and Mrs. Brown · 2 Comments

Long Tail Cast-On - BlossomsAndPosies.com

Casting on is the term for putting your first yarn stitches onto a needle for knitting. It is the very first thing you will do when you knit. There are a number of ways to cast on. Here we demonstrate the long tail cast-on, which gives a nice stretchy edge. This is especially useful for hats and sweaters, which need to expand when you put them on. It is also just a good basic cast on, so we use it for almost everything we make, even non-clothing items. Abbie insisted that I (Mrs. Brown) do this demo, so for the […] Read more »

Pine Cone Firestarters

By Abbie and Mrs. Brown · 1 Comment

Materials: old candle stubs cotton string pinecones old pot water clean tin can spoon scissors Instructions Put wax scraps in a tin can and place the can in an old pot that has water about 3/4 of the way up the can. As you can see, we use a pot that is just for craft projects. In the second picture we had added some more bits of wax so that the liquid wax would rise high enough in the can to cover the pine cone. Boil the water and melt the wax. While the wax is melting, tie some cotton […] Read more »

Quick and Easy Doll Cloak

By Abbie and Mrs. Brown · 2 Comments

Abbie says: I like working with fleece because you don’t have to hem it and that makes the process go a lot faster. My mom and I came up with this pattern together. My doll Laura is a 14″ Waldorf-style doll. Mrs. Brown says: This pattern can be adapted to any size doll because you use your own doll’s measurement as the base measurement. Materials: Fleece (we used white) Ribbon (we used red satin 5/8″ ribbon) Flower (we used a 1″ pre-made red ribbon flower) Scissors Thread Needle Directions 1) Cut a semicircle of fleece for the cloak. To find […] Read more »