I crochet too!

This is a baby blanket I made for hubby's niece that had a baby girl yesterday, May 10th. I put two pieces of complimentary flannel together and hemstitch around the raw edges. This gives me evenly spaced holes to crochet into and the raw edges are finished almost like a surged edge. Isn't it cute?

SOCKS!

Here are the socks I made at the retreat. Only two pair because I also took classes on a different way to dye yarn and make socks with beads. It was a great retreat, but now I have to kitchner the toes closed and take off the hideous yellow waste yarn. I'm not in a hurry because these socks aren't for anyone special. I need to make more just to have a supply for gift giving and some times people contact me to buy home made socks.
I went to a sock machine retreat last weekend finally! I needed to get away and renew my sock knitting ability. It was great to be with my friends and sell some of my yarn stash. Oh and I sold a Legare 47 sock machine too. It was the last of my stash of fixer-upper machines, so that part of my hobby is over because it can be stressful.

My Goldie Sox machine (New Zealand Auto Knitter) is my favorite by far, but this time I decided to take my first machine (Canadian Auto Knitter) and renew my relationship with "her". She is a great friend and never skips a stitch! I had forgotten just how special she is, so here she is in all her glory.

Leg Warmers on the Sock Knitting Machine

These are the leg warmers I was talking about. My friend wanted them to go over the knee so they needed to be extra long. They are 31 inches long and wide enough for average legs. You can see that I have ribbing on both ends so they will stay up on the leg and stay put at the ankle.
This is my Goldie! It's my favorite sock knitting machine and it's a work horse. Last week I made two pair of leg warmers for my friends. I have a picture of one pair. I was so excited about making the first pair that I forgot to get a picture before I gave them away. The first pair was made with regular sock yarn (self striping) and they were for a thin lady with small legs.
The second pair of leg warmers were a larger lady so I needed to adjust for bigger legs as well as make them longer for scrunching and folding down the leg. You will have to imagine them.

New camera

I just bought a new camera so I will be trying it out and posting new pictures on this blog very soon.
Because of the critters here I often need a mega zoom to capture Mother Nature at work. I did a lot of research and I purchased the Canon PowerShot digital camera. I only hope it was a wise investment (?)
Keep your fingers crossed!

Here's the Ladies

Teddy Bear's baby born in June 2009
This is Teddy Bear with her baby that was born in June 2009.
Both Moms with babies.
Big Ears Mom and her baby. Baby was born April, 09

The Boys!

One of these boys is a visitor. My boys are telling him to vamoose! E-Gads! There aren't enough girls for 3 young bucks.

Little Buck and Big Buck, what more can I say. They are handsome dudes and would say Big Buck is probably the father of the babies. I just hope they don't end up in someone's freezer.

Graceful One!

This is the love of my life! She thinks she's a lap dog and lays on my lap while take naps or knitting. I can set my pattern on her back while I'm knitting. She doesn't mind it a bit. I can even have my beads sitting there and she doesn't spill them.
This picture was taken last winter; I groom her myself. I love this dog!!

Back to the Critters

This is our resident owl. He/she entertains us every morning with his chanting to another owl nearby. They call back and forth to each other until the sun is up fully. I just love God's creatures!

Mardi Gras Shawl

This is my Mardi Gras shawl knitted several months ago. It was a knit along with Goddess Knits and in my opinion she out did herself on this one. It took me a long time to get pictures of this beauty and I don't think I captured it yet. But it's the best I can do. There isn't one square inch that doesn't have beads. It's unbelievable!
I used Silk Thread from Blue Moon Fiber Arts in the colorway called Korppi. It is purple and green and way more beautiful than I can describe while being paper thin or shear that you can see through it! This yarn is 100% silk with one hank being 1250 yards/99 grams! I hope you like it.

Don't Eat That!

It's Gone, My Pet Fish is Gone!

YOU TURKEY!

That's my pet fish! Actually he's a Heron looking for a free lunch. You can see we put netting over the top of the pond to keep the Herons, Kingfisher and Osprey out of our pond. It worked well for the Kingfisher. The Osprey tried once and left without a meal and this buzzard keeps coming back. He's on top of the netting, pushing it into the water and pulls the fish up through the mesh to eat it.

After these pictures were taken we put a fence around the perimeter of the pond and raised the netting across the top of the fence.

DID THAT WORK? NO!

Today, the Heron was in the pond anyway! I released my mean dogs (3 Poodles) ! And they ran around the fenced pond barking at him, which scared him a lot. But he couldn't just fly out. He had to retreat the same way he got in. THROUGH THE FENCE!! Being animal lovers, we brought the mean dogs into the house and watched the buzzard walk through the 4 inch hole in the fence.

It will be spring soon and the fish can have fun spawning again. That's always fun to watch as the males chase the females around and bump their mid section. Then watching the baby fish swimming and growing and changing color is entertaining too.