more cuties

Our two blue cochins arrived the other day and, boy, did they cause quite a ruckus in the box! Our biggest chicks turned into well, for lack of a better word, chickens! They were trying to get as far away as possible from these little fuzzy newcomers. It was pretty funny to see. I kept checking in on them throughout the day to make sure no one turned on these little gals.

Introducing..... Speck



and Snips



Now they're all great friends and sleep in one big huddle.

chicken fever!

As promised, after Spring Break, we got more chickens. The original plan was to get four more so we'd have a total of eight. That's a lot of eggs, considering that we get four every day right now! However, get a gal who can hardly resist all those cute little peeping furballs in a room with close to 600 new chicks, and she's bound to get a couple extra! So Worker Boy and I picked up 5 the first time (the girls were quite bummed that they had to be at school!), and then I special ordered 3 more which should be coming in this week! We'll have a grand total of 12 chickens, which is our maximum for space.

Now to introduce our five little girlies:


Starla is our biggest chick. She's an Araucana and she's the dominant one of the bunch. I think green eggs are pretty cool, too.


Sunshine is our Buff Orpington and is pretty mellow overall. (I know, Sunshine is also my nickname for our middle child!)


Snowy is a Silkie Bantam, and I can hardly wait to see her plumage when she's grown! Gavin loved her so much, he wanted to get another one, so I ordered a buff-colored Silkie.


Brownie is our other Araucana and is almost as bossy as Starla.


Our added extra this time around is Midge. She's quite tiny but doesn't allow herself to be pushed around too much. She's showing that she's quite capable of holding her own! I found out she's a Mille Fleur d'Uccle Bantam and will be quite beautiful. I also love her feathers on her feet.

www.mypetchicken.com has been a great resource for us, and has pictures of all the breeds.

Yes, we've named them all. I know there are those who think livestock shouldn't be named, but we keep them as pets, not as future food! Of course, the eggs are a great benefit. However, clearly I was going more for the appearance this time as the bantam eggs are pretty small and infrequent.

I can hardly wait for our next three - more photos to come!

a little closer to 40

So today is my 37th birthday! Growing up I would never have imagined that I'd be living in a small town on acreage and raising chickens! Regardless of my lack of vision as a kid, I love where I live, love being in a more 'country' setting (I grew up in Los Angeles) and I have thoroughly enjoyed rediscovering my love for sewing and crafting, and thus giving myself more time to do it.

Since Sundays are pretty busy for us with church in the morning and Awana in the afternoon, we celebrated my birthday yesterday and last night. It started with an awesome breakfast...


and ended with cake!


In my next post, I'll gush about my childrens' gifts they gave to me - particularly the homemade ones! Right now I think my sugar high is crashing, so I better go find a pillow somewhere.

some housecleaning and progress

On the SewMamaSew blog, they've requested fabric stash secrets. I took this as a challenge to actually organize my fabric stash. Surprisingly, it didn't take as long as I thought it would and I even found fabric I thought I had used up! The 'before shot' will give you a better idea of the mess I had to work with.




On to answering the stash questions...

I sew all sorts of things - home decorating items like curtains, pillows & knick knacks, baby quilts, some kids' clothing and costumes (of course!), I've made a few items of clothing for myself - skirts being the most successful, cat beds, cat and dog toys, purses and bags, and now I'm trying my hand at art quilting.

When I shop for fabric I usually get fat quarters because I can get so many! Of course if I really fall in love with the fabric I'll get 1/2 to a full yard. Most of the time I buy larger yardages when I've got a pattern or project I'm working with. I allow myself to be more impulsive with the fat quarters.

I'm only a pre-washer if I'm making clothing (I'm so paranoid about things not fitting right) or if I think the colors will bleed - although I don't always think that far ahead. I never pre-wash my fabric until I'm ready to use it that day - and of course I then kick myself for not doing it ahead of time because I don't want to wait to get started!

I never iron my fabric unless it's while I'm making the project.

Since I just sorted my fabric for the first time today, I decided to sort it primarily by color. I kept some juvenile and holiday prints in their own group. I also kept the flannels separate.

I wish I had a fail proof folding technique. I have too many folds showing in my stash and I thought about re-doing it, but then it seemed like too much work!

For storage, I have some cool raw wood shelves from IKEA that my husband needs to put up for me - I could do it, but in a few years it would probably fall off the wall! He's definitely the perfectionist in our family. So I sought out some baskets throughout the house today, chucked whatever was in them and set them up in my IKEA GORM storage shelving. For now it fits the bill and doesn't look to bad either!

I have no tips for building a well-rounded stash. I either buy for a project in the moment or whatever looks good in the store.

I love, love, love fabric, so I don't think I can ever have too much! (at least not yet)

For stash-busting, I look at SewMamaSew and other blogs for inspiration and new projects. It's really great to just grab some fabric in my stash to get started.



This is my favorite fabric right now. I got it at Stone Mountain and Daughter Fabrics and I unfortunately I can't remember the name of the fabric. I used it to make a dress for my oldest daughter.

The perfect stash would be having a fabric store in my closet complete with someone to keep it well-stocked and organized!

On to other things...



Here's a photo of my progress with my art quilt. It's a simple tree, a copy of the mosaic tile floor I did in my craft room. I'm having a lot of fun with my new mini iron, and fusible web is really cool stuff!

And lastly, we now have green eggs, too!

end of summer recap

I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last post! We've been running around to the pool, library, sewing camp, VBS, birthday parties, school shopping, etc. I think it's been because of our busyness, our lack of a schedule and the heat (which hasn't been all that bad, I have to admit!) that has prevented me from being inspired to post. Blah, blah, blah!

Anyway, since I heard from Beth at SewMamaSew today, I went running around the house collecting all of our summer projects so I could have something up-to-date on the blog. The girls' doll quilts will be on the Create and Celebrate post tomorrow - they're pretty excited about it!




Here's the list of cool stuff we made (including their camp):
drawstring backpacks, zippered pencil cases, long rectangle pillows, bolster pillows, aprons, placemats, bandanna shorts, old-fashioned dishtowels, pajama pants (I love the trim!) and a shopping tote (1 of 7!). It's pretty fun to line everything up - makes a girl feel mighty successful! Oh, and the girls and I made an apron for my mom when she visited last week. They just changed the color scheme in their kitchen, so we wanted her to have something fun to wear when working in it!
Tomorrow we're spending the whole day packing for our annual camping trip - we'll be gone for 3 nights (the absolute most I can do without a shower!). We'll be taking our dog, Tenna, with us - we'll see how that goes....

Then next week the kids are back in school! Everyone in our household is pretty ready for it. I might start getting some time to paint again, too.

Oh yeah, here's another reason I've been busy




These girlies are so cute! Sunshine Girl named them all: Caramel & Peanut, Thunder & Lightning, and Tweetie & Sweetie. We've had them for about 10 days and they've already doubled in size. Gavin's working on the coup and I told the kids we'll get to paint it and 'cutesify' it. More photos to come. The kids are thrilled that we're on our way to becoming a 'farm!' The only future additions I see are a pair of goats - no cow, pig or horse for me! I think I've forgotten to mention our 3 kittens, though...here they are napping in my craft room.
I keep remembering stuff, so it's making this post really long - go figure! We also finished off another part of the house: the woodstove hearth and mantle. We're very happy with the results.


Gavin created the mantle with an oak tree off our property. We left the cultured stone up to the professionals and they did a fantastic job. And then we could get the woodstove installed so we won't have such a huge output of propane heat! I'm inspired now to work on finishing other parts of the house while the kids are in school.

If you've made it this far down the post, I'm impressed! I promise not such a long one next time - and in a shorter time span. Thanks for visiting!