Last year on the Dickens blog hop we offered this over on the What Would Madame Defarge Knit? website. Now it’s here for you! Holiday Freebies for You! A gift from us to you—Christmas Cards from the Good Madame (who is only interested in righting wrongs and vanquishing injustice, after all…which is almost sort of in the spirit of the season…mostly…) Based on the art used in the Crachette Pattern from the Dickens of...

A frightening number of friends of mine have gotten ill lately. We’re all generally of a certain age (post 35, shall we say…) and all getting oddly ill. Kind of out of the blue. To refresh–I had hand tremors for 2-1/2 years, the need for Prevacid for 1-1/2 years, then suddenly 9 weeks of migraine (not migraineS–one loooong migraine. No joke). My MOTHER (not a doctor) diagnosed the gluten problem. I’ve been gluten...

Cinnamon Sticky Rolls Oven or Crock Pot Method. If you’ve seen my gluten free posts before then you know I love (a) Jules Flour and (b) finding a good cinnamon roll recipe. Now I’ve got both. AND a really great blog-hop to boot! Remember last year when I participated in the Dickens of a Christmas Blog Hop? Well, this is similar, but with nifty prizes and great recipes. At the bottom of the intro text to the Sticky Roll recipe...

I occasionally write about movies here, but only occasionally. Mostly because I don’t get out much any more, but also because being a movie critic—let me amend that—being a good movie critic is a tricky art. I truly feel that to be useful as a critic you have to look at what the writers and directors were trying to accomplish and then analyze whether they achieved their goal. This means going a fair bit beyond “two...

There’s one tricky bit about knitting—knowing when to stop when its time to bind off. No matter how long I’ve been knitting or crocheting, I will forever worry and kvetch about this. I never know if I’m right. I’m always guessing. Good metaphor for life, no? My current idiot knitting project is no different. I love having a project like this on hand. It’s easy. It’s mindless. It ends in a great finished...

The husband always liked Starbucks Cinnamon Chip Scones (I know. Evil Empire. Yada yada yada… they still were the only ones willing to make me a decaf soy latte when I was nursing–the locally owned shops in Brooklyn told me back then that “soy won’t foam right” and REFUSED to make me a drink! So. Starbucks won my vote back then.) Anyway. I digress. I started my hunt for homemade cinnamon chips. And the hunt ended...