Sewing and Stitching Update, April

As the days get longer, and the weather gets warmer, I'm outside more and more.  Always outdoor stuff to be done around this little place here.  And I do love being out in the sunshine.

BUT that means I'm not getting much cross stitching or sewing done lately, and from experience I know that more than likely the amount will dwindle even more as summer gets closer.  So, unless we get a string of yucky weather days (and my housework is caught up; it gets a little behind with the longer daylight/nicer weather days too) there probably won't be as much to show/talk about sewing-wise until late fall gets here.

What did I actually get stitched in the last month?  Well, I got a little of the backstitching done on my squirrel.  Mostly around the eye, on the tail and one of the legs.  Only two colors of floss so far; I think there's eight colors used in the backstitching part of the pattern,

I mended Faline's (hand me down) Easter dress by putting new buttons on it.  It was missing three of the four original white ones.  I didn't have any white in that size, but I did have some pink ones that matched the flowers in the dress, so I went ahead and took the fourth button off and replaced all four.  There was also a part of the sashing around the waist that had come loose, so I sewed that back down too.  And forgot to take a picture, of course.

When I gave that to DD1, she mentioned that Honorary Son had a faux leather jacket that the underarm seam had come unstitched and he'd wondered if I could mend that too.  Unstitched seams are an easy fix (way easier than seams where the fabric shreds), so it didn't take long at all for me to stitch that back together.  Rather than unstitching the inner lining to redo the seam from the inside, I just mattress stitched it from the outside. That worked really well.  Unless you look closely, you can't even tell.  I did take a picture of that, I was so pleased with the repair.  It's about a six-inch long section.  Can you tell?

I had hoped to start cutting pieces for a quilt I've been wanting to make for almost a year.  I had the idea last May, and a pattern in mind (which I purchased when Missouri Star had a deal on printed patterns for $1 each), and a whole stash of fabrics that will work as it's done somewhat scrappy instead of with a fabric line.

While no cutting has been done, I did pull fabrics for what I'm going to call the Airplane Quilt. As you can see, there's a red white and blue theme.  It's intended for DS1, who was an airframer during his time in the Marine Corps, and worked on F-18s.  My goal is to have it finished for his birthday this fall, or, if not then, by Christmas.

My New Grandson Has Arrived!

 Grandbaby #6 arrived almost three weeks ago.  Despite being induced at the 37 week mark, he's the biggest one yet!  8 pounds, 6 ounces and 21 1/4" long!  Which is partly why the doctor decided to induce three week early.

Unlike my other grandkids, it's taken me a bit to figure out what his blog name is going to be. His siblings were easy, as they were both born during deer hunting season, so naturally they got deer-related names.  He was due in early April, and we knew he was going to most likely come via induction before Easter, and I really couldn't find a Spring-ish name that felt right.  And then it hit me:  He's the sixth!  

So, I introduce to you, Sixlet! Anybody remember the Sixlet candies?  I loved those when I was little.  He's small (ok, not compared to the other newborns, but compared to the size they all are currently), and he's sweet, and he's my sixth grandbaby.

Faline adores him

And now that he's here, and his quilt has been gifted, I can finally post a picture of how it turned out.

Knitting Update, April

 Remember last month, when I said I'd started a new pair of socks and was planning to adjust a toe-up crew sock height pattern into a pair of cuff-down ankle socks?  Yeah, I had too much other stuff going on (like having a 3 yr old and a 1 yr old for two days and nights while their baby brother was born) plus came down with a cold (a gift from the grandkids), and was basically mentally fried and ended up ripping out the entire 30ish rows I had knit on the sock because somewhere, somehow, the pattern was off and the desired design wasn't appearing the further I knit.  It was just a garbled, unrecognizable mess.  Which, since I was using solid color yarn, tells you how badly it was going.  I mean, with wildly dyed yarn that has lots of short color changes it's not hard to have the pattern get lost.  But yarn that is all one color, without even tonal changes?  Yeah, it was turning out that awful.

So, start again.  But this time, because I knew I was brain-dead and just wiped out, yet I still wanted to add a new pair of short socks to my wardrobe, I picked a pattern that was SIMPLE and written cuff-down.

This time around, I am making the Churfirsten socks from the book Operation Sock Drawer, although I am altering them to be only ankle socks.   I have an entire 19 rows done at this point, woo hoo!  17 of those rows are the cuff, so pretty easy and repetitive stuff. So far, so good.

I finished reading Beer and Loathing by Ellie Alexander (good, good, good, as usual from her) and managed to read two more books, one of which was very short:

Neurodiversity: The Birth of an Idea by Judy Singer.  This is basically her doctoral thesis that apparently helped to spawn the phrase 'neurodiversity' but, I felt, it didn't really go into the detail I had hoped it would.  It was pretty short, so I did plug away and read the whole thing, but it wasn't what I had hoped it would be when I requested it from the  inter-library loan system.

Canary Girls, by Jennifer Chiaverini.  This one was interesting, partly because I like history, and partly because my own grandmother had worked in a munitions factory in WWII (the book takes place in WWI in England, so not exactly the same time or locations as my Grandma's southern US war experience) for a while until she turned yellow too.  Overall it was a good read, although I do have to say that in parts it felt like reading a high school history report--you know the kind, when you'd look up facts, try to put them in your own words and fit them into the outline your teacher assigned--more than a novel.

Right now I'm about 100 pages into The Tattered Quilt by Wanda Brunstetter.  It's okay.  Not great (although I tend to be a bit pedantic when it comes to assessing writing), but I will read it all the way to the end.  Mostly because I've all ready predicted what the ties between characters will develop into and I want to find out if I'm right.  LOL.

Frugal Accomplishments, March

Where did March go?  It was, apparently, a really busy month for me, because even though it was 31 days long, it flew by.   We did manage to do some frugal stuff during that time, though:

We ate mostly from the cellar, pantry and freezer.  This included a from scratch-ish banana cream pie (scratch-ish because the filling was pudding mix, but I had that mix in my pantry from a bulk buy summer before last!)

I cut DH's hair. He likes it really short, and at about the 5-week mark I can tell he's due for another haircut.

We needed to get some more wolmanized lumber and sheets of OSB for building the rest of the stalls in the barn, and I needed more stain/sealant for the wood, so we utilized a coupon for $25 off a purchase of $150 put on my Home Depot card and made one big shopping trip instead of getting a little now and a little in a month or so.  I'd been wanting to get some landscape timbers to use as trot/ground poles for working the horses over, and it just so happened that by adding 3 landscape timbers to what we all ready planned to purchase on our shopping excursion got us to that magic $150 mark.  So, when the cashier applied the coupon, my landscape timbers (plus about $4 more worth of lumber) ended up being free!  And then a few days later when the purchase appeared on my credit card I paid it off, so no interest accrued.

Then I asked Brad (who works at his family's painting business) if he knew of any white exterior paint that I could get for cheap.  He found a leftover mostly-full gallon of just that exact paint that had been at the paint shop for over a year, and offered it to me in exchange for some eggs, potatoes, onions, and garlic.

Tractor Supply ran a great deal for 25% off the log splitter DH has been contemplating buying to replace our old one that is currently not running (and he's tired of fixing).  So he stopped contemplating, and bought it.  By putting it on my Tractor Supply card rather than paying cash, we got another 5% off.  (And when the transaction appeared on the account, I paid it off with the cash we'd planned to use for the purchase).  30% off a brand new log splitter is tough to beat.  

(And now that he has a new one, he's actually decided to go ahead and fix the old one--with help from DS1--and put it up for sale.  Yay!  Even used, if it's running he can sell the old one for more than half of what we ended up paying for the new one.)

I found a deviled egg tray that holds an entire dozen eggs (so, 24 deviled eggs) for $3.29 at Goodwill.  I've been looking for about six months for one that holds more than 12 deviled eggs and is of good quality.

I went to a local book swap on the 30th and came home with eight books.  

Two other frugal things I did that weren't directly for me/my financial situation:

I mended the sash on a hand-me-down dress that Faline had been given and she wanted to wear for Easter.  It was also missing 3 buttons, so I replaced those using some I have in my button stash.

Honorary Son had a faux leather coat that one underarm seam had come out of, and I stitched that back up for him, so he was stylin' at Easter too!

Horse Update, March

The weather has continued to be really up and down.  Dry, for the most part, which is good because most of the time (except after heavy rain) I can use my designated longeing area as well as ride inside the fenceing without punching up the ground (much).  So there's been lots of longeing for both horses, followed by lots of riding for the LBM.

Poetess is finally settling in to the idea of longeing being calm and stretching rather than run-like-hell-in-a-circle time if I even suggest a canter.  I've put the bridle back on her and we've been longeing in that with much better results than we were last summer/fall.  Honestly, I think her being able to watch me work the LBM (and the Poetess does, for the most part, stand at the gate and watch while I longe the LBM) has helped her get the idea that longeing is not a big deal and we just go walk and trot and sometimes canter on cruise control, not like our tail is on fire.

A few times, after longeing her, I've led her over to the mounting block and had her stand next to it while I climb up the steps.  She's been awesome about standing still, so I've actually laid over her back a few times once I'm at the top of the mounting block.  No signs of nervousness there.  I'm getting really eager to climb on her back and start riding her, but I don't want to be hasty and end up dumped on the ground with broken bones.  I think I'm going to wait until after she has her teeth floated next month, and probably do a little ground driving first to make sure she's calm with contact on her mouth.  Plus, make sure the footing is good and solid (it's been greasy/slick this week) and have DH there as my spotter.

Meanwhile, the LBM and I have been working on short segments of trot under saddle, as well as lots and lots of circles and serpentines reinforcing the neck reining.  Honestly, she turns really well just with a shift of the weight, and little leg contact and a very slight touch of the rein (ie. my finger curls on the rein and she feels it in her mouth), but her owner wants neck reining, so we're working on neck reining.  We've also been working 'outside the fences' more, riding around the outer perimeter of the pasture as well as the (former) alfalfa field that is the designated site for my outdoor arena.  

The outdoor arena is going to be another project in itself, as it needs some grading/drainage work in addition to taking off the topsoil and adding a sand layer.  I'm hoping this summer, but DH is sounding like it's not high on his list for this year. . .  Meanwhile, until we're done with the wet season, the footing there is too wet/deep about half the time. That will change once we get closer to summer.  

With the increasing daylight and just general progression into Spring, there's been an uptick in play during turnout.  It's not unusual to see the Poetess and the LBM out running and racing at least a few days each week.  It's kind of funny, because the Poetess will let the LBM be in the lead all the way to the back (road side) of the pasture and about halfway along the short side.  But once they near the corner for the long side back to the barn you see the Poetess reach and flatten out and in two strides she's way in front of the LBM and just keeps increasing the distance between them.  You can definitely tell who's the Thoroughbred and who's the stocky, most-likely-got-something-gaited-in-her-lineage, horse.  And the extra two hands of height (and leg!) on the Poetess certainly aren't a disadvantage either!

Usually after a race, no matter what the temperature is (65 degrees or barely over 30 degrees), both horses throw themselves down for a good roll.  I managed to catch a picture of the Poetess mid-roll a couple weeks ago.

Barn progress has been sporadic.  

We got the third pasture secured (gate hung and electric tape electrified) but I haven't turned horses out in it yet because I don't want them punching up yet another soggy pasture, so I've been waiting until a dry spell where the ground is solidified.

DH bought lumber for the extra height (drop?)  needed on the two bottom boards of the stall doors I mentioned last month and got those put on.  We were in a warm spell at the time, so I got them stained and sealed right away.  Now we just need to put mats down in those two stalls and they will be ready for use.  He'd wanted to do that the day after putting on the new door bottom boards, put I'd apparently strained myself helping lift and carry one of the doors and I was having muscle spasms in my chest and back so I was unable to help with anything heavy for a week (like 100 pound stall mats) and we just haven't gotten back to that task yet.  Maybe this coming weekend.

 

Sewing and Stitching Update, March

There's been a whole lot of sewing going on lately.  Mainly the quilt for grandbaby #6, whose arrival is imminent.  I finished hand sewing the binding last night.  Because it hasn't been gifted yet, I'm going to wait until the April update to show pictures of the entire quilt. Here's a sneak peek:

The backing is a large piece of flannel that I bought at my favorite vintage/antique mall just over a year ago.  Kind of an ironic story now, as both DD1 and DD2 were with me at the time, and when I saw this fabric in one of the booths for less than $10 and it was very obviously more than 3 yards of fabric (therefore a great price), I grabbed it. Showing them my awesome find, I said "the next grandson I get is going to have this for the backing on his quilt." 

I was thinking that, fingers crossed, it might be DS2 and his wife as they had indicated they'd really like to get a family going.  Or, fingers uncrossed, might be DD2 and Brad if they weren't careful enough (DD2 has long said she is happy being an Aunt with no ambition to ever be a Mom).

Turned out about 8 months later, DD1 said "Surprise! You're getting a new grandchild in 2024! (And BTW, we're surprised too!)"  And then, in December, when she shared the news that she's carrying another boy, well, obviously he was going to be the lucky recipient of this cute tow truck fabric.

The yarn thief snubbing me because I told her she was in the way

 while I was pinning up the quilt for it's photo shoot.

In the last week or so, that baby quilt has taken up all my free time.  There's been no knitting done, and no work on my counted cross stitch.  Prior to that, though, I had been stitching an hour or more each week and have gotten the adorable squirrel just about all stitched.

I have to finish stitching the random snowflakes in the 'air' around him, and then do all the back-stitching. The designer of this pattern uses a lot of back-stitching to add definition and realism.  With the baby quilt finished, I foresee a return to evening cross stitching and maybe a completely back-stitched squirrel to show you next month.

Knitting Update, March

 Well, last month I set myself a goal to finish sock #2 of my Textured Lace Socks.  Did I do it?

Yes, yes I did!

Natural light showing the colors a little truer.

And then I promptly cast on for another pair of socks, also for me, but this pair will be ankle height.  I am attempting to adapt a crew sized, toe-up sock pattern to a cuff-down anklet knit.  So far, so good.

Actual yarn color;

Knit Picks Stroll in Buoy

The pattern I'm adapting (ie, using the chart, backwards since I'm doing cuff-down not toe-up) is Love Needs A Heart from the book Operation Sock Drawer.  I did my own cuff, a simple K2 P2 for twelve rows, then started the Toe and Instep Chart (from the book) at row 51 and am working backwards.  In the above picture I have completed just three rows of the chart. My plan is to do about 20 rows then begin the heel.  I'm sure I'll be able to be that far and take photos for next month's knitting update.

In the past month, I read three books:

The Bookshop on the Shore by Jenny Colgan, which was a light read with some deeper tones.  It is sort of a sequel to The Bookshop on the Corner, but the characters in the first one have much smaller parts in this second book. (note: link is to audiobook, but I read the hardcover from the library.  Amazon's pic of hardcover did not match the edition the library had but the audiobook pic did, so that's the link I used so you could 'see' the book.)

Ape House by Sara Gruen.  Interesting on many levels, I liked this book.  I found this author years ago, when she had just one (horse-related) novel, and have read and thoroughly enjoyed all but her third book (she has written five).  I tried reading the third many years ago, but set it aside after just a few chapters.  Perhaps it was just the wrong time for me for that particular book; I may have to borrow it from the library and try again.

It Could Always Be Worse by Margot Zemach is a children's book, and I got it from the library to read to the grandkids.  It's a really cute read, and they loved it when I read it to them with inflection and different voices for the different characters.

Currently I am reading Beer and Loathing by Ellie Alexander.  It is the latest (print) novel of the Sloan Krause series.  I'm not a e-reader type, so I'm a little frustrated that there seem to be some in-between novellas that are only available on Kindle.  Anyway, I just finally got my hands on a print copy of this one (via inter-library loan after waiting about six months for one to be available--my local library system only 'owns' e-versions) and I'm only through chapter two, so will have to wait until next month to give an opinion on it.