Back to blogging?

It's been a long time!! I tend to turn into an introvert during the summer. All the school-year activities blessedly come to an end and I just want to hide for a while:) I don't even get much stitching done during the summer. Anyway, we are now a month and a half back into the school year and the activities are in full swing and I'm ready for the winter break already!!! :)

So with all the other business around here, I thought I'd give blogging a try again and we'll see how it goes. A little update about our lives...

-Garden flopped this year. I'm not real good about taking care of it anyway, and with the lack of rain this year and the extreem heat, not much got done with it. In fact we haven't even pulled it out yet. It's still just a enormous weed patch:)

-DD started 7th grade this year and we can both feel the effects of a longer and a little harder school day!!!

-I volunteered for more than I think I can handle this year, LOL!! :) I am now the community leader for dd's 4-H club and also volunteered to help with the Secret Sister group that her home school group does. It's fun though and I think if I can just get through the next month with 4-H then then amount of work for it will lessen too.

-Cats, cats and more cats!!! We had several more batches of kittens born this summer, sadly not all of them lived. However one batch, whos momma ran off when they were about 3 weeks old, did make it and they are our favorites. They really think I'm their momma:) They are around 4 months old now, so are taking care of themselves, but come running to me when I'm outside and will play around my feet (and try climbing my legs, which is fine if I'm wearing jeans, not so much when I have a skirt on!!!). Here is a pic of most of them, though my babies aren't in this one (they hadn't been let out of the barn yet).

Hoping to put up some pics of the little bit of stitching that I did get to in the next day or two. Maybe someone still reads here? :)

Animal Babies

We finally got the last of our animal babies for this spring!!! The only other animal we might get are calves, but it isn't looking promising right now. The cattle market is crazy high right now, and it just doesn't make any sence to raise up our own when we can buy grass fed beef for about $3.00lb. Usually we can do our own for less, but not sure about that right now.

These girls are for my dd's 4-H project. The two on the outside are Kikos while the middle one is a Boar goat. All are in the meat goat class. Sadly the middle one died last week. We only had it a little less than two weeks and the last couple days we noticed that she wasn't eating as much and was laying down more than the others. She had a little bit of a clear runny nose, but they all did in the morning, and that was all that I could tell that was wrong. Until her last day, when her nose looked gunky and she had a bit of a cough. So I called the vet who wanted me to bring her in, but the trip did her in and by the time we got there, she had died. The vet said it was fast acting pneumonia.

Dd was really upset, but that is part of raising animals, so we just go on. We started watching the other two really carefully and sure enough, they had it too. So they both got shots (actually I've given them both two shot now, and they seem a lot better, so hopefully we have this beat). I really hate giving animals shots!!! I've had to do it with sheep (we had a long time ago), calves and now goats. But the goats are the worst because they cry and scream!!! Makes me feel horrible, but I know they need it, so I guess I have to do it.These little ones are Rhode Island Reds and we have a mixture of male and female. Around 25 in all. I was only going to buy female this year, but then made the mistake of reading about how chicken that you buy at the store are usually raised and slaughtered (though I know there are exeptions) and well, now we are planning to send some of the males off to be slaughtered locally so we can have chicken meat in the freezer:) We'll keep a couple of the males so that we can raise more babies later on.

And these are the first born of the spring kittens. They are 6 weeks old today!!! They were born in the barn wall, but we got them out a couple weeks ago and put them in this box. Momma is still kinda taking care of them, so we started feeding them just a little and giving them water. However, they are already starting to excape the box, so hopefully momma will keep an eye out for them so they don't get lost:) Yes, one of them has a yucky eye that just won't get better. Another one had a yucky eye too, but it cleared up. I may have to call the vet to see about some eye drops if it doesn't clear up soon. UPDATE: They are now out of the box and thankfully their momma is watching over them:)

And this batch was just born on Monday. I really didn't think this momma would take care of them at all as this is her first batch, she was hand raised (her momma disapeared when she was 2 weeks old), and she is under a year old. We haven't had good luck with the really young mommas, but she hasn't hardly left these kitten alone and is being a really good momma!!! And I'm so happy too, because so many of our cats are gray and white, but she has one down in that pile that is almost all orange with just a bit of white:)

There was one more batch of kittens, but they didn't make it. This was that momma's 2nd batch and she hasn't been interested in taking care of them yet. She's kind of a runty cat, so I'm wondering if that isn't the problem. She did start out pretty good as she at least birthed them all in one place this time, but then didn't feed them for more than a day or two. We usually try to keep them alive (though other than the 3 that were two weeks old we've never been able to get them to live). This batch was in part of the barn wall that we couldn't get to though, so sadly they all died (which they probably would have anyway, but we like to at least try).

Well, I think that is all of the new animal news around here for a while. They are all sure cute, but going to keep us a bit busy!!!

I hope to have a small spring-time stitchy finish to show off by the end of this weekend, so I'll update with some pics then:) And we are hoping to get most of the garden in this weekend, so I may have a few pics of that too. Busy, busy around here!! :)

Update and some finishes

Wow it's been a long time since I've been on here. I was doing so good too:) We've been super busy getting ready for spring and the addition of young'ins around here and that has taken up some of my computer time, that and I've been busy stitching!! In the next few week I should have some pics to post on the young'ins coming, but for now I will post on the stitching that has gotten done. This first one I actually finished stitching it in Dec 2010, but I never posted about it because I wanted to finish it into this very cute bunny first. I didn't get around to sewing up the bunny until now though. The ears gave me some trouble and I'm still not real happy with them and I think the ribbon needs to be aged a little as it seems too bright for this bunny, but all in all I really like him:) This is my first spring finish for this year and I hope to do several more. This one was the last of my Valentine's stitching I did for this year. I'm not usually into Valentine's, but thought the house could us a little color and trying to get away from the winter themes in hope of warmer weather:) This one was a freebie from The Stitcherhood, I stitched this on 35ct WDW Chestnut and I stitched with one thread over two. It took me about 3hours 45 min. And finally (and thankfully this one is at least part of my Crazy Challenge!!), I finished stitching the ABC Pinkeep Bird also designed by With thy Needle and Thread. I didn't finish this one off the way the instructions said to because I didn't have an old oil can, but I like it as an ornie better anyway. I stitched this over one on 28ct something:) Not sure now what the fabric was other than the count. This one took me 5 hours and 15 min. Well, I hope in the next few days to have an update on my 'Sarah Tobias' project and also the Nora Corbett Fairy, they are really coming along. And maybe by next week I'll have some new babies to show off as well!! I'm pretty excited about that:)

A bit late

I was hoping to get this finished by Valentine's Day, but just barely missed it:) Got it done early this morning though, then surged around the edges and stuck it in this 'tuck'. I know I really didn't 'NEED' another project to work on but after seeing this one done up on a blog, I just HAD to have it!!! LOL This is a primitivebettys freebie found on the side of her website here.
I did this on 32 ct Jobelan 'Sandcastle' and used CC's Muddy Puddle and Red Current. It took me around 4 1/2 hours to stitch it.
I hope everyone had a 'Sweet Valentine's Day'.

Lots of stitching and sewing

I've been keeping myself busy this past week. I finally have sewn up a couple of small designs that I've finished stitching and started and finished one that wasn't part of the 15 day challenge:)

This one is 'Cranberry Deer' from Beehive Needleworks. This one took me 7 hours to stitch. I added my initials and the year on the back, I am trying to do that with most of my pieces this year. The chart called for this to be turned into a pinkeep, but I thought it would be nice as an ornie, so that's what I've done with it:)
This one is my new start that I stitched up for a Valentine's SAL on a stitchy board. It is a freebie from Kissy Cross that you can find here...
She has lots of really nice freebies, and this is the second time I've stitched this one up. The first time it was for an exchange and I really wanted to do it again for myself. Well, here I am!!! This one took me 8hours and 15 min to stitch up.

This one is my favorite of all that I've finished this year. This is Small Tokens from BBD and it took me 10 hours 45 min to stitch this. I filled part of this with crushed walnut hulls and also polyfill as well. I couldn't figure out how to stitch the lace to all sides and get the corners right, so I just put the lace on the top and bottom. I'm really happy how this turned out!!!

Here they are all together. One of my goals for this year was not only to stitch more, but also to do something with what I stitched. I usually stitch something up and then place it in a baggie and forget about it. So far this year though, I've stitched up 4 things and finished them into something as well:) 4 for 4 isn't bad at all!!!

I also got brave and did a little baking. I used to bake a lot, but after going gluten free, well I can't get things to turn out nearly as easily and I just gave up for a while. I've found a few websites and blogs that have started getting me back into baking, and though it is really different than before, I'm starting to produce a few edible things. These are biscuits (and I say this because when my dh came in he though they were cookies;). They are really pretty good right out of the oven, though they turn into little hard rocks if I put them in the fridge:) All in all, pretty good though.

Well, I'm working right now on a WIP from 2010 in the Saltbox Scripture series (LHN) as I figure I should be getting some of those done too!!! :) Not sure I'll finish it before going back to my 15 challenge pieces, but at least it will be some progress on it.

Found a Great Givaway

I don't usually do the giveaways on sites that I don't know, but this one is too good to pass up. SO as part of the requirements, I'm to advertise this giveaway on my blog:), so if you'd like to see the goodies that is up for grabs, please go to ....
http://natalysneedle.blogspot.com

She's also got lots of neat pics of her stitching, so have a look around while you're at it!!!

A Stitchy update

I haven't been posting much because I've been busy stitching!!! I am trying to get a rotation schedule to work for me and I think I just about have it. Since I am trying to keep track of how long these pieces are taking me to stitch, I've decided to work on each piece for at least 5 hours before moving on to another project. This way I spend enough time on the project to make it look like I've gotten somewhere with it, but not so much time that I get tired of it. Now I've already broken my rule a couple times, but mostly it's working for me:)

First off I have my Sarah Tobias (BBD) to show off. This was one of my first projects that I started and I really love it:) As of this pic I've put in 9 hours on this (yes, I'm a really slow stitcher!!). I should have put a pair of scissors or something to show how small this is (over one on 32ct), it is turning out great!!!
This is my progress after 5 hours of work on Peony Fairy (Nora Corbett). I'm not enjoying this one as much, but it is a really different project for me, so it will be nice to have a challenge:)

And I got 'Small Tokens' (BBD) done!!! This project took 10hours 45min to complete. Hoping to get this one stitched up into a pincushion this weekend!! Will show pics when that is completed. So far this is one of my favorites that I choose to work on. I'm really excited that BBD seems to be a designer that I really love to stitch. This is my 2nd project that I've finished of theirs.

And I'm really excited to say that I found more GAST 'Mulberry' in my stash of threads (it was kitted with another project, but there's enough to share with two projects!!!). SO I started working on 'Cranberry Deer' (Beehive Needleworks) again and am hoping to have that done by tomorrow!!! That will be my 3rd Crazy Stitching Challenge finish!!! Not too bad:)

I haven't started any more new ones to this month and I'm thinking that other than a Valentine's Day start that I'm planning for this Friday (one of the stitching boards I'm on is doing a Valentine's SAL), that will be all the new starts for the month. Maybe next month I'll start a couple more new ones:).

Well, I'm off to get some housework done and maybe I'll get to do a little stitching as well. Have a great day.