Saturday fun

I went to a fiber festival in Chelsea with some artist friends of mine and bought some wool rovings. All from Michigan. Lamb and alpaca.

Now I need to learn what to do with them.

After lunch with the ladies, I went home and saw...

a Gypsy reading a Chrystal ball.

You can see the ball is giving bad news to the customer.

Once again....

...I failed miserably at sticking to one topic. I guess my brain doesn't work that way.

ADD perhaps?

I finished sock pups tail.

Here he is waiting for the birthday girl to come home.

We surprised her at the bus stop.

She loves him and his new name is Paco.

And he loves tacos.

Also the bag I made for the auction finally made it on the site. The Auction on line ends Friday and the auction ends at the shop this Saturday. My bag is around page 16 if you label it price descending, unless it gets a bid then that may change.

http://www.salinepictureframe.com/showroom/index.php?act=viewCat&catId=368

There are lots of small beautiful works of art as well, and last year there were some great bargains on all original art.

Ok. New topic. I finally figured out how to put a photo at the top of my blog.

I got one thumbs down and one thumbs up on my photo selection.

So in my quest at making the masses of people reading my blog happy(all 3 of you), I would like some input.

Stay with the one already there.

My Sugar Creek

Go with a chicken theme

Like Brownie in the porch pot....

....or eggs?

Or something garden related?

Or chicken & garden related?

Or something I made?

Like an art quilt?

Or a chick bag?

Or my hard working pup?

It doesn't even have to be one of those photos, just point me in a direction and i can take a new photo.

I thank you in advance for your help.

I don't know what to call this

I thought about calling this "Are you sick of hearing about my great weekends yet? In case you aren't, here's one more."

Not that I want a crappy weekend, it's just I am on a great weekend streak and i don't want them to end, but I don't want to sound like Pollyanna either. I get my share of shit too.

Friday, I met with my sons 8th grade class at the park and helped supervise while they tested one of our local rivers for pollution and such.Not much effort on my part but fun anyway. I got to hang with my boy and his classmates and eat hot dogs. Not bad. The last time I helped out at that park, all the kids were shorter than me.

Friday eve I sold another bag on etsy! Yay, etsy love.

Saturday, kids had soccer games. I usually don't care much about watching sports on T.V. but something about my kids playing soccer is the greatest. We also had wonderful weather too which helps.

We had an hour and a half to kill between games so I shipped off the etsy package and we went to our local farmers market. More crafters this year, and lots of plants for sale. I was bummed though because the only veggies for sale were all ones I currently have in my garden. There was a booth selling home made cheeses and although it wasn't in my budget for this week, I plan on returning and trying some soon.

I pack a lunch on these Saturdays so we don't have to travel all the way home or resort to fast food. We picnicked in the car and then watched my sporty girl play.

Then the kids and I went shopping, they are both taking class trips this week (the boy, Washington DC. the girl, Toronto). We got travel food, granola bars and such and bottled beverages, since they are required to take disposable packaging so they don't have to worry about lunch boxes on the bus.

My girl's birthday is tomorrow so she also picked out a few early gifts. She loved it! She got to pick out what she wanted and it saved me gas on an extra trip back to the store later.

Shopping with my kids is so much fun. They are two funny souls.

We also hit a local fruit and veggie market and got a combination flat of flowers and veggies. I get some Veggie plants already started thatI don't like starting from seed, like eggplant and hot peppers. I would never use up a whole pack of those kind of seeds anyway. The Coleman family owns the market, they had purchased my grandfathers farm and took such great care of it, so I like to spend my money there. Very nice family.

I got the flowers for my pot sculpture.

I saw this pot idea from another blogger http://empressofdirt.blogspot.com/ , if you go to her blog, scroll to the bottom and click on projects. I added my own twist with the baby foot sticking out. My MIL likes all thing cherub, so when one of her angels was damaged by mowing, I stole the body parts. I know, I'm twisted but i like what i like.

Rained all day Sunday, but had a great indoor Mothers Day. I sure am blessed with great kids and Hubbie.

Today I'm finishing gifts for the girl.

I made a travel bag for her trip. I wanted a zipper to keep her things safe. The zipper didn't turn out as well as the first time I installed one, this one is slightly crooked but I think she'll forgive me.

She loves all things puppy so I thought this fabric would be fun.

I put a pocket on the back.

I also am making her a bulldog from mens socks. Martha Stewart kids magazine had this idea a few years back. One of many sock dogs I've made for her. She usually claims them in the making stages and how can I refuse?

It still needs a tail. I'll stitch it on during her soccer practice tonight.

I like using different buttons for each eye. It gives them a one of a kind face.

I hope you all had a great Pollyanna weekend too.

5 day weekend

The kids had a long weekend, thank you Goerge Washington. So we......

Stacked more firewood.

Plowed the driveway.

Looks good.

Can't have all work and no play.

Our version of a sleigh ride.

Our pup loves his frugal toy, it really is his fav. When one laundry jug is chewed up and ready for the recyle bin, a "new" one is ready for play.

I caught Bratty in the act.

Fresh from the factory.

For some reason the crotch in Hubbies pants is the first thing to go. I don't ask.

I just fix.

Not as good as new, at least not indecent.

I finished 3 more bags for the show.

Monday the girl and I suspected colds were in our future, so we ran errands, hit the library, I saw this hat and checked out the book, so during Idol last night I practiced the double crochet stitch on cotton yarn. Now I have a new dish cloth and the stitch mastered. Now the search for just the right hat yarn.

So my girl and I do have colds, she's home for the day and we both feel like caca poo poo. Good thing she got Sponge Bob DVD's at said library and I was productive this weekend so I don't feel bad about veggin.

100th post

Five months and 100 posts, geez I like to talk. When I started this blog, mainly as a way of journaling my days, I wasn't thinking any of you would be interested in my ramblings.

I have been inspired and motivated by so many of you through your blogs and kind comments. Thank you all for that.

For my 100th I wanted to write something clever, funny and incredibly insightful,

then I thought,

"why start today?".

So I am just going to post a regular morning in my life, or as I'm calling it...

What I did this morning.

I made the fam french toast with homemade syrup.

I love hot syrup.

Somebody's waiting for dropped scraps.

After I got the kids down the icy driveway to the bus, I gave the girls their grain.

Hawkeye and Hoot.

Gratuitous chicken photos.

Loads of laundry waiting for me.

I started another bag for the teacher conference show.

5 weeks away, yikes!

I went out to lunch then The Quilt Patch in Techumsea with my mom and sis on Sunday.

Spent way too much $$, but I found these great Teacher themed fabrics.

I can't wait to cut into these Dick and Jane fabrics. I hope some teachers like them, since I now have huge credit card debt.

Making turkey soup for lunch.

So that's it. Nothing exciting but a good morning anyway.

I want to give away something as a thank you for your kindness, so leave a comment on this post and on Friday I'll draw a name and send the winner something homemade.

(I'm not sure what yet)

Smooches to you all!

michelle

Grandparents weekend

We had a nice 3 day weekend. My mom and Step dad, who by the way is an amazing woodcarver and has blessed us with quite a few art pieces over the years, came over Friday afternoon. They had given our son a carving kit at Christmas with tools, books and wood. Wonderful gift.

Two of grandpas walking sticks in our entryway.

Grandpa showed our boy some techniques and look at his masterpiece.

For dinner I made Minestrone and garlic toast , mom made ravioli

and my girl made muffins. We then played ponytail canasta till the wee hours.

Saturday Hubbie manned the log splitter, and the kids and I hauled the wood on sleds through the snow and stacked it on the front porch. This was the tree with the ant invasion so when we found a piece with a cavern filled with ants, we took it to the chicken pen and the girls went crazy. I guess you'd have to be a chicken to appreciate the taste of hibernating ants. I love having wood to keep our heating bill down and the smell of the fresh cut wood greets you every time you open the door.

The kids and I then went to my Dad and Step mom's for dinner (Hubbie plays hockey).

My step mom cleaned her closets and let me and the girl take home "new" clothes and made a pistachio encrusted salmon for dinner which was deeeliiiishhh! We are a spoiled bunch. Then played a rousing game of clue that grandpa after we explained the rules to, proceeded to win the game.

Sunday morn, girl and hubbie cleaned her room, it needed it bad, they even sorted clothes and vacuumed the closet! I do have quite a man.

I felted my first bag. It should be perfect for my daughters water bottle and Chapstick carrier for soccer. It's great how you can take a poorly knitted object and it turns into something you wouldn't actually mind carrying in public. I had stitched the flower with some leftover yarn but it didn't show up as well as I'd hoped. I'm going to try to stitch over it again to have it show up better. Speaking of felting, do any of you ladies smarter than me know if you can felt other materials than wool, cashmere, etc... I am wanting to felt some sweaters that have weird combinations of yarns in them and hoped if the water was hot enough maybe they would work.

Also do any of you know if you start some water for tea in your beloved teapot you received as a wedding shower gift over fifteen years ago that you use on a daily basis, go down to the basement to do some sewing, forgetting about said teapot, boil the bajeebus out of your one and only enamel teapot for who knows how long till its bone dry and then some, is it safe to use ever again? I don't see any chips, but the bottom is kind of gray, I just don't want to be ingesting some weird metal every time I use it.

Oh it is in the 40's today and I'm searching the closet for some shorts!

Take care and squeezes from me.

Happy MLK Day!

We have the day off so the children and I are just hanging out, we bought groceries and now trying to keep warm. It feels like Siberia around here. The chickens are somewhat warm with their new red heat lamp. Where is this global warming they keep promising?

I kid, well half kid.

Lucky for me I have a manly man who keeps our firewood supply up.

It was a beautiful cherry tree we were hoping would survive a carpenter ant invasion but didn't.

I finished the rug. It's 4 feet across.

I did make a green chick bag for me. I filled it right away and got major

notice at 2 parties we went to over the weekend.

I made a tissue pack from the apple and pear fabric I got a JoAnn's.

I already made one lunch bag out of this fabric and have enough left for a few more.

I have dinner in the crock pot so I should go stoke the fire then sew something. I hope you all have a wonderful day!