American Girl class-Felicity week 3

This week, we talked about book three in the Felicity series, Felicity's Surprise. We discussed colonial dancing, practiced our curtsy and colonial medicine. We had "Shrewsbury Cakes" for snack, they are like a cut-out cookie. Here is the recipe we used...

Williamsburg Shrewsbury Cakes

Here's a modern variant that's a tad more suited to our modern tastes and batch sizes!

1/4 c. unsalted butter
1/4 c. shortening
1 c. sugar
1-1/2 tsp. of grated orange peel
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 egg
3 Tbl. milk
2 c. sifted all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. cream or tartar
Directions:

Cream the butter, shortening and sugar. Add the orange peel and vanilla extract. Add the egg and milk. Sift the flour, baking soda, salt, and cream of tartar and add to the creamed mixture. Mix well. Roll into 1-inch balls and roll the balls in sugar. Arrange the balls 1-1/2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten the balls gently with a small glass. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 8-10 minutes or until very light golden brown. (In our book, they cut them out with shapes such as stars and hearts).

http://www.sugarpiesfood.com/2009/09/williamsburg-shrewsbury-cakes.html

For our craft, we made Tussie-Mussies, which are like a small flower bouquet. You can find some directions for making them here. Our version was made from an American Girl craft book, and much more simple! I couldn't find lace doilys or lace hankies, so I gave them each a piece of lace to wrap their flower in, with two ribbons. In colonial days they would have carried these nosegay-type bouquets to help them smell better since they didn't bathe very often!

They're almost done making them... 

Then we began work on our ongoing project, cross-stitch bookmarks! In our last class, I had the girls write their initials and two designs (there were 5 to choose from),  and I made them into patterns on my computer! Several of the girls easily got the hang of it and finished their first initial! A few of the girls thought it was hard, but they kept working. I hope more of them get it figured out next week. I had a hard time finding bookmarks to stitch on, so I just cut cross-stitch Aida cloth to the size I wanted and put Fray-stop on the edges. It seemed to work fine!

Diligently working on their bookmarks...

I love seeing the Felicity doll on the dress, while this mom helps
 her daughter with stitching...

More girls stitching...

We talked briefly about colonial medicine, found here. It talked in our Felicity book this week about how to curtsy, and we also learned from here. I did make the girls get up and try their curtsy- it was fun!
I can hardly believe we only have three more weeks left! The semester has been so fun and it is flying by!