Yep, It's January

January in Michigan means cold.  C.O.L.D.  Wind, wind chills, bundling up for outdoor chores.  You see, a lot of the cold is due to having more clear skies in January than in the months on either side of it.  Clear skies means less heat held down near where we are, close to the ground.  Add in the wind roaring across the fields, and, well, it's nose hair freezing cold outside.

This week has been a typical January cold snap.  Single digit temps in the mornings, highs maybe in the teens, windchills in the negative teens.  It's been a cold day's work at the horse farm.  The barn protects me from the wind, but it is still freezing inside.

Here is a picture I snapped the other morning while I was collecting water buckets to knock ice out of them so they could be refilled with water for the horses to get a drink.  Sometime between dinner feeding and morning feeding, one of the barn cats must have tried to get a drink from this bucket, and found it frozen.  Too frozen to drink, but still soft enough ice to create indentations where the cat rested it's feet.

Another cool thing (pun intended, LOL) about a cold snap in January is the awesome colors of the sunrises.  Here are pics from two different days this week, taken at different ends of the horse farm.

I think, perhaps, January is one of my favorite months.  It's raw, and it's brutal, but it is also full of beauty and wonder if I just look.

Yarn Along 2015.1: Socks

Happy First Wednesday of 2015!  Do you know what that means?

It's time to join Ginny for the weekly Yarn Along!

Remember the Christmas socks for my Mom I knit last year?  These socks?

unblocked, but finished 

pattern detail

She loves them.  She loves them so much, that the day after she received them, she hinted, on Facebook of all places (nothing like letting the world know to add to the pressure, thanks, Mom) that her birthday is coming up in February and another pair of socks handknit by her daughter (in other words, me) would be a wonderful birthday present.  She would even supply the yarn.

Being put into the spotlight like that, I replied that she better hurry and get the yarn to me if she wanted birthday socks, seeing as socks used to take me a month to make prior to expanding the population of our home by four and the last pair knit (post population increase) had taken two full months.  Well, the very next day after the Facebook post about the socks, she called me and said she was on her way to my house, with a brand new skein of sock yarn.

So, yeah, I've got socks on my needles again.  She chose self-striping yarn, so I'm doing a simple pattern that works well with the design dyed into the yarn.

Currently, I am reading Miss Julia's School of Beauty.  It's been at least a year since I've read a Miss Julia book, and this one feels like a treat.  Especially after the craziness of December when I didn't read much at all (confession:  this is a library book I checked out in December and had to renew last week when I hadn't hardly read any of it in the 3 weeks it's been checked out in my name.)  After New Year's I picked it up again and I'm pretty sure I'll be finishing it by the weekend.

Score: Turnout blanket (slightly in need of repair.)

Frugalista strikes again! Or, maybe it's Lady Luck smiling on me.  Except I'm not one to believe much in luck, only in being in the right place and mind set when opportunity strikes.  Anyway. . .

While at work yesterday, one of the boarders asked me if I thought anyone might be interested in a used waterproof turnout blanket in need of two straps: one belly strap and one leg strap.

Not knowing what shape it was in--aside from the two missing straps, and not knowing what size it was, and not wanting to appear too weird, I shrugged.  "Maybe someone who sews?"  I suggested, adding that in the past I had repaired a horse blanket or two of my own.

(Horse people are a funny lot, some think every horse has to have it's own personal brand new stuff; others think a bargain is a bargain, hand-me-downs are cool and that horses aren't very choosy.  I don't yet know this boarder well enough to guess which group she falls into.)

The boarder seemed hesitant to believe anyone would want to tackle sewing on new straps.(Hmm, maybe the first group.)  She too shrugged.  "Maybe.  But I don't know anyone with a heavy duty sewing machine. I'm not going to bother with it; I'd rather throw it out."

"I've repaired blankets before by hand, with some really sturdy needles," I told her, and added "But then again, I hate to throw out anything that could be useful."

"Oh, me too," she assured me.

I went back to cleaning stalls.  Five minutes later, the boarder approached me again.  "I think I'm just going to set this blanket on the trash bin.  If you can think of anyone who wants to fix it, go ahead and take it."

Well, at first I didn't think I wanted to deal with it. I mean, it's not like I've got such an abundance of free time anymore that I don't know what to do with myself.  I could see that blanket sitting in the sewing room for months, taking up space, and DH asking why I even brought it home if I was never going to do anything with it.

But it was a pretty good quality blanket, and other than a slight tear over the tail, and those two missing straps, it was in good condition.  Most likely it had a few more winters left in it, were I to replace the straps and patch that small tear.  But no, I didn't have time to even be thinking about stuff like blanket repairs on a blanket I had no idea would fit any of my three horses. I surely didn't need to tackle a repair project that I would then have to find a buyer for (to recoup my price in materials, if not my time, for the repairs).

I tried to keep my mind on the work that still needed to be done: finish cleaning stalls, bed stalls, fill water buckets, bring horses in before I left since the wind chills were in the negative teens. But that darn blanket kept nudging its way back into my thoughts.  A good blanket, just in need of a couple straps.  I had repaired blankets in the past;, I know where to get a hold of parts. . .

I ended up taking it off the trash bin and putting it into my truck to bring home with me.  Once home, I gave it a good washing (shhhhh, don't tell DH, he has this weird thing about horse laundry going in the same washing machine his underwear does. Crazy.  I mean, laundry is laundry, right?   It's not like I'd wash his underwear with a horse blanket.  I mean, those obviously go in separate loads. *insert eye roll here*  Besides, the washer makes it clean, so what's the difference between a horse blanket and a blanket off our bed?). I also inspected it for any other parts it might be lacking.

Nope.  One surcingle and an elastic leg strap, one snap, a buckle and a slide adjuster was all that baby needed to be useful.  The tear would be easy peasy to patch.  And, it even still has the tags that tell what size it is, what brand it is, how heavyweight it is, and how to care for it.

Score!!  One Kodiak 1200d heavy turnout blanket in exactly the size the Old Man wears!  Awesome.

Making Halter Fleece

Do you have horses?  Do you have horses that wear halters all the time?

(Quick note--this thread not intended to be a debate on should or shouldn't horses wear halters 'round the clock.  I have my beliefs, and, unfortunately, the barn owner where my horses live, has hers.  Since it's her facility, her opinion overrules mine, and my horses are nearly never without halters.)

Anyway, I decided that to combat the rubs that tend to occur on the nose when a horse wears a halter all the time, I wanted to make some halter fleeces for the nosebands of my horses' halters. I could have easily bought some, but, being cheap frugal and having plenty of ability to sew, I made my own.

First, I measured the length and width of the noseband on each halter that I wanted a fleece cover for.

Then, I chose my fabric. I really wanted a faux sheepskin, but could not find any at the many craft stores I looked at in December.  So, I went with a fake fur, in black.  My options were white, cream, light brown, or black.  I figured black would wash best without stains, so that is what I went with.

I also purchased a package of sew-on velcro to match.

Once home, I cut the fabric into pieces that were 4" wide and 1" longer than the noseband of the halter I wanted it for--for the large pony/Arab halter that was 11.5", for the regular horse halter 12.5", for the large horse (avg. warmblood) halter that was 13.5".

I eyeballed velcro to the approximate length I wanted, and cut 4 sets (1 fuzzy piece and 1 prickly piece per set) for each halter fleece I intended to make.

To make each fleece I first turned the short sides under 1/4" and sewed them down.  The long sides I left alone.

On the furry side of the fabric, I sewed four fuzzy piece of velcro, fuzzy side up.  Each velcro piece I spaced about 1/4" from the long edge of the fabric and the two end velcros approx. 1/2" from the hemmed short edge.

Then, on the back side of the fabric, I lined up each of the four prickly pieces of velcro with their fuzzy partner sewn to the furry side.  And sewed them, prickly side up, also about 1/4" from the long edge of the fabric.

That was it!

When I stuck the prickly velcro to the fuzzy velcro, I had a long tube that was fuzzy on the outsides.  The bottom side you could see the stitching where the velcro was attached, and the top side was just fur.

 bottom

top

Three halter fleeces in three different sizes made in less than an hour!

And how do they fit, you ask?  Pretty dang good!

Arab sized

Quarter Horse sized

warmblood sized

Yarn Along: Finished Gifts

Joining Ginny today for the yarn along.  Since she is sharing finished handmade gifts at this last yarn along of the year, and since I haven't been around to post a yarn along since Dec 10th, I thought I too would share what Christmas creations kept me busy in the 'missing' weeks of this month.

more mini mittens

I made five pair of mini mittens in all, one pair in blue for a friend who loves the color blue, and two sets of pink and blue for family members who have both a young daughter and a young son.

the fingerless gloves for DD1's long-time boyfriend

He was quite surprised that I had knit him something, and, according to DD1, he wears them all the time.

Lego mitts

I saw these earlier this fall, and just knew I had to make a pair for DS2.  He was a huge fan of Legos growing up, still has all his Bionicles sets in their original containers, and isn't too cool to admit that even in college he likes to build with Lego blocks.  I'm betting these mitts get shown off on campus once he gets back to school for his final semester.  Because he's in his senior year at an engineering college, and everyone there will think his mitts are the coolest.  Even the grad students.

Then there were several non-knit gifts that I also made.  I forgot to take a picture of the several pounds of peanut brittle, but I did get photographic evidence of the sewn items I created this month.

apron

This, too, was a gift for DS2.  He likes to cook, and did not yet own an apron.  Being that he has secured a job after graduation with Ford Motor Company, I thought that an apron in Ford print fabric would make a good gift.

flannel nightgown

K3 came to Michigan woefully lacking in warm winter jammies. Grandma to the rescue!  I made this simple nightgown a bit long so that she can get several winters out of it before it gets outgrown.  (Full disclosure:  I had planned to make more than one, but ran out of time, so finished just one for Christmas.  One or two more will be made before this winter is over; the fabric is washed, ironed, and waiting to be cut.)

fabric box

I saw a tutorial for cute quilted boxes this summer, and decided to try my hand at making one.  Being my first attempt, it isn't perfect, but it was good enough to gift holding a baggie of peanut brittle.  In the above picture, it holds a jar of mint sugar scrub, which had been my original intention of what to put in the box, but I decided it looked better with a bag of candy sticking out the top than a jar of skin scrub nestled down inside.

baprons, front side

baprons, reverse side

Poor Toad is teething, and subsequently drooling all over every shirt he owns, soaking it within fifteen minutes of putting it on.  So, I hunted up the tutorial for making baprons--baby aprons--that I found back in 2012 and made him a few of his own.  In my hunting for the tutorial, I discovered that the free pattern I downloaded 2+ years ago is no longer free as of summer 2013.  Which made me scramble through my file cabinet hoping I hadn't thrown away my paper pattern and printed instructions!  Thankfully, I was able to locate both, and Toad now has his very own baprons and his chest stays dry.

burp cloths

 (or, as they are known less genteelly around this little place here: "spit rags")

spit rags unfolded to show their 12" x 15" finished size

So, all that is part of what kept me from blogging for most of the second half of December.  The other parts have nothing to do with knitting, sewing, or other crafting, so they'll have to be blogged about on some day that isn't a Wednesday.  ;0)

Goal Met

I don't believe I mentioned it here; in fact, no one in my family even knew until earlier this month, but last January I set a goal for myself for 2014.  Well, I had several goals, but this one was something that I alone had control over (compared to, say, my goal of getting my horses home this year; which required $$, labor and cooperation on DH's part).

And, interestingly (or maybe not interestingly) enough, it is the ONE goal I actually met in 2014.  Okay, not the only goal I achieved, but the only one on the list I began this year with.  A few others cropped up part-way through, so I'm not counting them on the  same level as this one.

What was this goal?

Don't laugh.  Because it probably sounds pretty dorky.

To not buy bread this year.

Meaning, I would bake all my bread this year, instead of running to the store and buying bread if I didn't feel like making it.  Because in late 2013 I found myself often taking the easy way out and spending $3 a loaf for (somewhat) comparable bread to what I make instead of taking the time to measure, mix, knead, roll, and bake my family's weekly bread.  $3 a loaf times two loaves a week for something that a) cost more than twice the price of the ingredients I would use, and b) was not nearly as good in taste, texture, or nutrition as the bread I made.

It bugged me that I was spending our grocery money this way, and that I was finding it easier and easier to rationalize store bought bread even though every time I ate a piece I was totally disappointed in it (not to mention disappointed in myself). So, I challenged myself to not buy a single loaf of bread in 2014.

And I did it!!  Or, rather, I didn't do it.  Buy any bread, that is.  Even when going on a road trip, a weekend canoe/camping trip, or on vacation. I planned ahead, made my bread(or planned a menu that didn't include bread), and did not spend a single cent on store bought bread this year.

Such a seemingly little thing, but you know what, it feels like a major accomplishment to me.  It took dedication, and quite a bit of elbow grease, to make our bread week in and week out all year.  Especially when DS1 and family moved in and our bread consumption went from 1.5-2 loaves a week to 4 loaves each week.

That's somewhere in the realm of  110 to 130 loaves of bread, all kneaded by hand. No laughing matter.  And a savings of $165 to $195 if I figure it cost me $1.50 in ingredients for each loaf, which I know it didn't.

Not so dorky of a goal after all.

Christmas Tree

What do you get when you take

• a potted Norway spruce purchased at auction in October,
• an old plastic milk crate acquired from nobody remembers where,
• a black rubber grain pan not used since the pony died in 2005,
• a red, green, black and gold plaid table cloth from the oval table we owned (that sat six people, maximum, with it's leaf in full time) before getting our larger, oblong table (seats six w/out the leaf, up to 12 with leaves)
• and a tree skirt made with Christmas print fabric and an out of style women's wrap skirt sewing pattern

Answer:  a live Christmas tree that doesn't leak water on the floor, fits plenty of gifts underneath, and can be planted outside (landscape your yard!) after the holiday is over.

With so many people in the house this year, I hadn't wanted to get a full-size cut tree. Takes up too much room that we definitely needed for seating and just for being able to walk through the living room.  And I swear I will never, ever, do a fake tree (just a personal over-my-dead-body kind of conviction; no offense to anyone who prefers an artificial tree).  

So, when I bought a bunch of Norway spruce at auction during the fall for planting across the front of our property, I saved out a nice symmetrical one and designated it as our Christmas tree for 2014.

Having a live tree meant that we did not put up and decorate our tree right after Thanksgiving. In fact, we didn't bring it into the house until Monday Dec 22nd, and it went out again yesterday, Saturday Dec 27th.  I got a whole lot of flack for that from pretty much everyone I ran into who asked, all during the month of December, if I had my tree up yet.  But I had good reason for waiting so long:  this gave it the least exposure to indoor temps, and the best chance at survival when we did plant it (yesterday afternoon).  Having an incredibly warm spell lately, with temperatures in the upper 40s and soft, moist ground for planting in will also (hopefully) help this tree live on for many years to come.

(In the past we've tried potted trees twice; both bought from nurseries selling live Christmas trees, and neither one survived more than about 6 months after Christmas.  Both were kept in the house longer; one even lived in the basement until spring when the ground thawed.)

Being that the tree was only in the house for five days, and those were busy five days, I forgot to get a picture of it until right before I took the decorations off so that DH could relocate the tree to the row of other Norway spruces planted in October.  Hence the not so great picture, above.  It was taken in haste with my cell phone, and a whole lot of light coming in the sliding door behind the tree.