Happy Catterns / St. Catherine's Day!

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Hi all-
November 25th is St. Catherine’s Day, patron saint of spinners,lace makers, and ropemakers! (Surely, in this day of inclusion, we can extend that to all lovers of thread-based pursuits.)
Hope to make a little Catterns Day cake recipe and squeeze in some lace making today at some point–in addition to knitting, I make bobbin lace which is a weaving process.
Lots of history notes around, but this originated as an English celebration which also marked the first day lacemakers began to use candles at night. One of the “party games” was to jump the candlestick – ever hear of “Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jumped over the candlestick?”
Here are links to articles, and recipes for Catterns Cake:


https://laceincontext.com/of-saints-queens-and-cattern-cakes-saint-catherine-and-the-lacemakers/.
https://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/cattern-catherine-cakes-138969

Threads, eating cookies, and partying! Sounds like an MDK holiday to me!
Lorraine

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Oh, what a wonderful post–thank you so much for this, Lorraine. Such a time travel to imagine the lace makers, working at night. The cake recipe sounds delicious.

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Great article, thank you! The cake looks interesting, too. I ant quite imagine a caraway flavored cake, but that makes me want to try it!

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