Free Embroidery Designs

I am starting to plan next years curriculum and want to include home management/life skills as a subject this year. I was wondering if anyone knew of some good web sites or curriculum’s. Also any ideas that you might have or things you have done with your girls would be helpful.

I think I have the book for you. It is Christian, but I think anyone could use it-and just taylor it. I have 4 boys, and they have a "boy’s" version and a "girl’s" version, but I use both. The name of the book is Keepers at home.

http://www.keepersofthefaith.com/Catalog/lkf/ProductSearch.asp

The book covers such areas as:

Creative Skills: basketweaving, calligraphy, candlemaking, candlewicking, ceramics, counted cross stitch, crewel embroidery, crochet, decoupage….though to weaving…

Homemaking: Baking, budgeting, cake decorating, camping, cleaning, cooking, fire safety, first aid, food preservation, gardening, health and fitness, home decorating, hygiene…through to soapmaking

Knowledge and Skills: biography, computer, foreign language, genealogy, library, literature, music, poetry, sign language… through to writing

Nature: birds, butterflies, flowers, horses, insects, pets, trees, wildflowers,

Other: bus worker, child care, church, ecology, etiquette, etc…

Recreational Activities: badminton, bicycle, croquet, hiking, ice skating, swimming, etc…

It has 374 pages, so obviously it doesn’t go in depth on any one subject, but tells you what to do to cover them. Kind of the same way scouting would cover things for badges.

Ookay. I have some Stoneware and Ceramic Plates, and I realize that essentially 90% of glazed dinnerware is contaminated with lead, in sufficiently high enough quantities that people have actually gotten lead poisoning from eating off of and storing food in these things.

I have a few Stoneware plates that were made in Japan, and are probably seven or eight years old. They are solid white, and although they have a few ridge-like designs imprinted as embroidery around the top edges, have no colors. Does this mean that they’re probably lead free, or could the glaze still be ridden and laden with lead content?

In addition – my parents refuse to convert to glass dinnerware, and insist on using what is obviously a threat and danger to both their own, and my health also – especially mine, moreover, since I’m only in my teens, and my brain still has some developing left to do.

I intend to put my foot down and refuse to eat off any ceramic or stoneware dinnerware – only things made of glass (not lead crystal, of course). But this still beckons the question: "Can anything else that’s put in the washer with the ceramics and stoneware get contaminated with lead?"
Actually, Gary, lead was found to be just as prevalent in the glaze of ceramic and stoneware dinnerware made in the United States and in Europe, as it was in products imported in from developing countries with less stringent standards.

Nobody is safe.

If it was made as dinnerware in Japan only 8 years ago, it probably does not contain lead. You might be able to find the website for the manufacturer. Most of the recent Pb poisoning from pottery glaze (it is typically the glaze and not the ceramic itself) comes from the developing countries, Mexico, central america, SE asia, etc. I doubt that 90% of glazed dinnerware poses any threat of poisoning people. People have been eating off of ceramic plates for a long time. There are tests that can be done. People who inspect houses for Pb paint often use X-ray fluorescence which could be used on the ceramic without damaging it.