Cloth shopping bags - Christmas Gifts

I got a little carried away this fall. I started out by thinking that I would make a cloth shopping bag for a Christmas present for my mom.

Then I thought that I'd make one for each woman in the family. That would be 5, plus me.

Then my husband came home from shopping with a plastic bag! Oops, I making them for the men too. That's another 5.

I visit a certain thrift store every week, so I started buying fabrics suitable for bags. After 3 visits, I had about 20 metres of fabric to work with! Each bag takes one half to one metre of fabric, depending on whether it is lined. I ended up making 19 bags, and 14 of them are "originals," plus 5 duplicates. I have fabric for more, but I'm tired!

Above are the woman's bags. I gave everyone their choice of bags. My mom took the one on the far left, with the African-like print. The red plaid was one of my favorites. SIL choose it.


Above are the men's bags. DH took the top left navy & gray (very sporty looking!), my 2 brothers both got the lower left black with plaid lining (Ala Burberry), and Eric insisted on taking the bottom right grey bag. He's 7, and he was thrilled to have one too!

Leah wanted a bag (she's 4), so I took one of the plain cream ones (I made 4 of them!), and added an iron-on cat decal that I was saving for something special (like a bag!).



The last two bags are MINE! I love the dark grey print one, and I have more of that fabric so I'll probably make more sometime. The other is a black denim with white threads showing, with a colourful butterfly trim.

I just might have to do this again next year....

Simplicity 8318 Costumes (Capes)

Cape in heavy knit star fabric.


Neck detail. It would be very hard to ease the fabric into the bias tape, so I allowed it to have tucks.
Harry Potter wearing his black 4 way stretch cape.

Halloween Costumes

Leah was a Cat Fairy. This is the parade of costumes at playschool.


Eric is Harry Potter, also at the costume parade at his school.

Sunny at 5 months

Sunny is now 5 months old, and 10.3h and 310lbs. He's as tall as his dam Twinkle, and wears a foal sized halter, and fits pony size on the smallest hole. That's a long way from the mini halter that was too big for him when he was born!


Next time, I think I will brush him before taking pictures! He loves to lay in the hay and roll in the manure pile!

Suitability 7700 Flymask

The top fly mask shows a 2" binding that the pattern calls for. The bottom mask was reduced to 1" and looks much better.



Dizzy trying out the mask. The black string sticking out the side is the shock cord I used to gather the mask behind her ears (I sewed it in and cut it off once it was adjusted).



The so called XL "warmblood" size fits my small headed horse pretty well.

Twinkle's Sunny

I finally named Twinkle's colt: Sunny.

He is 29 days in these pictures.



He is very friendly and the kids love him.



He sure can run!



The size different between him and his "Aunt Dizzy" is startling. But Dizzy is being very good with him.

Twinkle Foaled

Here's my new baby. He was born at about 5am on Saturday, May 24. In the rain and the mud! Actually, he's nice and dry in a shelter with lots of straw. I checked on Twinkle at 3am, and she showed no sign of going into labour. I looked out the window before checking her at 6am, and knew something was happening because Dizzy was all excited. The foal was still wet, but standing, and Twinkle passed the afterbirth while I watched.



Baby is still unnamed. He appears to be bay at the moment (black mane & tail), but he has lighter legs. Twinkle's last year colt by the same stallion was a buckskin, so this baby may be too.



He's very active, and also quite shy of people. I can manage to catch him to treat his umbilical stump, and just to scratch his whithers.



Poor Dizzy was crazy for the first few hours. She'd let out a LOUD whinny whenever the foal made a sound, and tries to touch it through the corral panels. She's calmed down now, but is still very interested.

Twinkle's Foaling Journal: Got Milk?

Warning: below are pictures of my pregnant pony's girl parts.

Twinkle looks like a ball with legs.



I'm taking this picture, crouching on the ground, and there is Dizzy, with her head down, trying to figure out what I'm doing!



Her tummy is getting closer to the ground!



There is her swollen udder. I actually managed to get some milk out of her today! That is exciting because you can use the milk colour as a foaling predictor. It's clear and sticky, which is the first stage.



And finally, her "girl parts," which is looking slightly swollen and perhaps more relaxed (a sign of foaling!).

Twinkle's Foaling Journal: Bagging up

Twinkle is just starting to bag up! (For the non-horse people - her udder is swelling).

Warning! Pictures of her "lady parts" included below...





Her lady parts, not looking any different that it did a month ago.



Underneath view of her udder. It's larger than yesterday, and quite firm. She's nowhere near fully bagged up, but she's started!



Behind view of her udder.

Eric and the Equines

Eric came outside while I was grooming Dizzy and Twinkle, and he was so cute with them! He was trying to feel Twinkle's foal moving, but didn't have any luck.


He's just the right size for Twinkle to put her head over his shoulder


Then Dizzy wanted some attention.


How cute is that!!!

Dizzy is a little taller than Twinkle!

Jalie 2787 Criss Cross Top

Leah in her size 4 top. She wouldn't let me get any better pictures than these!

Close up of the flutter sleeve and lettuce hem. Note the "zag" in the side seam where the lower front joins the side seam.


Me in my size U top with 3/4 sleeves. I'm pretty happy with this top, especially since it makes me look very thin!

Twinkle's Foaling Journal: Page 1 - MOVEMENT!

Twinkle is due in May, and that's all I know about it! So, I've picked May 10 as her foaling date so that I can schedule her care according to that date.

The most amazing thing is that I FELT THE FOAL MOVING! I was SO EXCITED! Poor Twinkle was eyeing me when I draped myself over her, hugging her belly, trying to feel the foal move! When I run a shedding blade over her belly, the foal moves like CRAZY! It was so cool!
Above is a comparison of her belly in the last month. Not much different. But I notice the difference in her. I see her laying down more often. She is slightly relucant to move. And she waddles! LOL!

New Addition

Introducing....

Smokie!

She's 3 months old and hopefully is our new outdoor kitten. Of course, it's too cold outside (-10c last night!), so she's actually an indoor kitten until it warms up.

Deck Cover

Here is the before picture of our south facing deck. It was much too hot and sunny to use much in the summer. I tried to put up a cloth sunshelter last year, but the wind totally wrecked it.


And a few thousand dollars later, and one day's work by one guy, the deck is covered!



The deck will be much more useful now, and the cover will keep the kitchen from getting so hot in the summer as well.

Seed Starting Light Stand

I found the plans to built a lightstand for seed starting at Localgardener.net.

And then I also found this one at Mother Earth News.

And the result is a combination of the two.


It is HUGE! But fits nicely along a side wall in basement. It's 66" tall, and about 53" wide. The shelves are 20" apart. I used a 1x11 laminated board on special at Rona. Stephen cut them to length for me (thanks!). I stained the boards and topped that with an indoor/outdoor clear sealing paint. Two of lights came from Home Depot, one came from our garage, and I bought a new one for the garage.


It cost a little over $200 to build, but these cost nearly $600 to buy. I used Airmiles and Petropoints and got $150 of gift certificates to Rona and Home Depot, so it didn't cost much overall.


The lights hang on chains, so they can be adjusted depending on the size of the plants. I'll be able to start 6 trays of seeds on it. Last year I started 2 trays under 1 light!

Leah's first birthday party with friends

Leah turns 4 on Sunday!

There is the birthday girl! We had 3 friends from school over, plus the 6 year old from next door.

There is Leah blowing out the candles on her cake.

Leah and the 4 princesses (and one "Canada" prince!). I smudged out the faces because my mom is freaked about me putting pictures of other people's kids on the internet.

KwikSew 2591 Girl's A-line dress

A review of this pattern will be posted on Patternreview.com

As you can see, Leah LOVES her new dress. The 6 year old girl next door also saw the dress and loved it. Too bad I didn't have enough fabric left over to make her one too!

My New Home

My blogster blog has now been abandoned. They are renovating over there, and things are not going well. I've had enough and I've moved here were the grass is green and there is no snow!