Cats and Other Things

Something cute happened in our house back in August......we welcomed new family member McGeorgeous Pussycat Denton Barge.

McGeorgeous was rescued by two of my nieces after they found him and his siblings abandoned near their apartment.

They nursed him back to health and, because they already have two cats, put the word out for a home for him.

It wasn't difficult for us to succumb and once he was 'fit for travel' he came up north to our place.

After a week of living under a bed, he started getting braver, to the point of assisting me with a bit of sewing —

He was quite a shy little boy and a lot of the photos they sent through showed him sleeping in drawers, on top of towers, and generally hiding away somewhere.

Perfect I thought, I can make him a little cat house to curl up in. I'd seen a pattern online which had appealed.

It was a great way to dig into some of my non-quilting remnants and I had a merry time going through that cupboard.

Both (ginger) cats were immensely interested while I was making it.

Of course, since it's been finished, it has barely warranted a sniff. However I'm thinking that it's coincided with warmer spring temperatures so maybe it will be of interest once summer is over 😏

The 'mattress' for it was extremely fun - two old stretched beanies, padded with shredded leftover sweatshirting fabric and 'quilted' together with scraps of yarn!!

(The pattern I used is found *here*. I altered it slightly, piecing it more like a bag and using binding, rather than making a case which the 'batting' was inserted into. I used leftover Soft and Stable scraps, zig-zagged together.

It was very satisfying to make this completely from bits and pieces that were stowed away!

And catching up on (even older) news, we celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary during May. We held a small family affair here at home...it was really nice that Mum and my siblings were able to come up and join us. We had a lovely, fun weekend.

I spoke about Mum's ill health in a previous post. Unfortunately she's been unwell again and I've spent some more time back down at my sister's, and spending long hours at the hospital. I packed to leave home in a bit of a rush so had nothing to occupy my hands with. I found a ball of yarn and a crochet hook at the local Spotlight store. The new kitten needed his own afghan (see Tammy Cat's one *here*); I used a variegated ball and crocheted around and around until it was all used up.

I nearly got a photo of it being used but McGeorgeous emerged from his castle before I could grab a photo!

And then decided to lie just above it —

As Mum was still in hospital, I started another!! 

I love this neutral coloured yarn so may buy a second ball to make an even bigger afghan!

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn

Winter Woollies ---

While I was down at Mum's, my sister's and/or the hospital, I kept any idle hands moments at bay with some knitting. 

I'd been given a couple of balls of wool which didn't/wouldn't really go with anything else. I thought they would be good for beanies for the kids but wasn't sure if there was quite enough in each skein for a full sized one. I hunted around and found a pattern that started from the crown. That way, I could just cast off at the brim when I ran out of wool.

The first little bit was a bit tricky with few stitches, 4 needles and lots of stitch markers, however as it grew, it got easier and easier.

It was hard to get an idea of the colouring of the yarn from the unopened ball. I fully expected there to be a lot more turquoise  than there was (only some at the start) so it was an 'interesting' knit!

I ended up making two 'short' beanies. 

While the design was fresh in my mind, I found some more yarn and made two beanies with a fold over brim. 

The pattern was 'Top Down' by PurlJam/Kevin Haggerty - found *here* on Ravelry.

If none of the kids claim/need them, I will be happy to donate them to charity.

Last winter was a funny old one for me; I got little crafting done but really enjoyed spending my time crocheting a jersey.

I used 'Highlander Heathers' wool from Skeinz, in the colour Scotch Mist. I loved the smell of it - it still smelt like real wool - and it was lovely to use. And the motivation was spotting the design, Low-rider jumper by Iron Lamb. As soon as I saw it, I KNEW I had to make one.

This was a well written pattern that started from the top so that you could easily fit it as you went.

I learnt some new techniques - yes, the 'ribbing' is crochet!😲!

And it fits perfectly. I was a bit concerned I might overheat in it but the open weave style of crochet must help and I find it a comfortable cosy wear.

Once I finished the jersey I was still in crochet mode. Inspired by Miss Tammy's cuteness and her love of things cosy and warm - 

-and also by friends in blogland making Afghans at the time, I decided that Miss Tammy needed her own blanket. In a moment of brilliance, I decided to make it yellow to match her colouring, and contrasted it with a blue. I didn't purchase anything new for this, I went through odds and sods that I had accumulated over the years (including some from when Mum cleaned out her cupboard - Oh how good it is to have a daughter who also crafts!!!). 

(Helping Ganma make her afghan)

I finished the blanket at the point where I was having trouble finding enough of the right coloured remnants to use, and it turned out to be a perfect size.

(There was one yarn that could have been made for heavy duty carpets (!!) which was really horrible to use - after finishing the round, I decided it could be biffed - that's very unlike me, so it must have been bad!)

So it's a fun little rug to have on the floor in front of the fire for Tammy Cat to sleep on.

While I was in oddment using mode, I found some acrylic yarn which I made into peggy squares for the blankets kiwikid Sue puts together for the Kogo organisation. I delivered those in April when I went over for Scrub Stitching.

Well I think that is my knitting and crocheting caught up with for now 😀

See you next time, 
Raewyn

A new crochet project....

I was pleased with myself when I remembered to join in with Friday Night Sew In on Friday, and equally displeased with  myself when I forgot to do a blogpost about it before the end of the weekend!!

On Friday night I snuggled into my comfy chair and continued on with the the Quinn Blanket I started a few weeks ago when we were on a road trip.

I made a good start and was part way through another one when wee Tammy woke up and decided that the crochet she had (mostly) ignored previously looked very tempting after all.......

After a bit of untangling I was able to continue!

I've amounted a good number of them but still need a lot more if I want a decent sized blanket!

These will be crocheted together so we leave a long tail to do that (meaning there are messy threads everywhere just at the moment!).

And here are the half hexagons for evening out the edges -

I'm really enjoying making these, as long as Tammy keeps her paws to herself!!

To see what others got up to on Friday night, please visit *here*. Thank  you Wendy for hosting us :-)

'til next time,

Happy stitches,
Raewyn

Finishes and Farm Spam

In spite of a lack of sewing time (aside from my Crazy sewing!), I racked up two finishes during August. First of all, the afghan I started in May or June.  I had a pile of wool I needed to use, and had fallen for the Snowflake version of the 6-day Kid Blanket.

Perhaps the original version of this pattern took Betty McKnit 6 days to make, with thicker yarn and (possibly) a smaller size, but this one has taken me 3 months. A nice winter project. It's been nice to collapse into my chair at night and do some mindless crochet. Now that it's done, I'm struggling to get more energetic in the evenings but as calving eases, I'm sure some needleturn or stitchery projects will get started again.

This is the first time I have done an edging on an afghan, but I'm pleased I persevered with this. I nearly stopped here after this pretty wavy round - 

But this, not very clear, photo shows that it was worth doing the outer edge. The burgundy is done so that it looks like there are little pink bobbles.

The second recent finish was a quick impulse sew after discovering this new fabric in the shop. It's a kiwiana one which I thought would be ideal for a wee bag for Odie's dinosaurs.

Even though it doesn't actually have dinosaurs on it, it does feature Tuatara which were living at the time of the dinosaurs!

Odie was very pleased with it!

And onto the Farm Spam!

See the black calf on the right in the below photo? He is my 100th calf to rear! He was born yesterday and here he is coming in to the shed today.

(I tell a lie really, although we have 100 keeper calves, the grandies next door are rearing 3 of them for Calf Club. However I have three to-be-sold that I'm feeding, so we won't get too pedantic with all the figures!)

We've finished with all the colourful calves. The three below are all Friesian/Jersey cross (we actually mate with Kiwicross bulls) heifers (females) who will one day become milking cows for us. Identifiable by the yellow ear tags.

And all the calves being born now are by Angus bulls and are varying shades of black. Here are two we used last year in front of a mob of calves which contains some of their sons-

The beefy calves are really lovely to raise with all their fluffy chubbiness.

The red tag means it's a male Angus cross. All the female beefies get green tags. We have a lovely couple who buy all of the green girls when they're about 4-10 days old.

Some have really fluffy curly topknots!

As you can see I am forever moving my calves around the place. The calf shed is too small to keep them in for too long - 30-40 calves is its limit, so we have various other sheds we use. And at about 2-3 weeks old I start letting them out onto grass.

Sheltered paddocks at first but as they get older they move further out onto the farm and I shift them to a fresh paddock every two days.

The calves aren't the only ones who enjoy the milk.....the chooks always have their heads in my buckets trying to drink it. Tonight I had some leftover milk that had gone lumpy. The chooks loved it!

I looked over and spied a random egg which someone had deposited randomly on the ground -

Look at the size of it - a double yolker for sure.

That was 15 eggs for the day, not bad from 18 chooks.....

(Or was it 15 and a half eggs?!)

Whoops, nearly forgot to include this photo -

Ok, must away, 

'til next time,

Happy stitches,

Raewyn