A Stitch In Time

What does one do when their husband is at work 10 -12 hours a day and there is no Internet or satellite service?  One crochets, of course!

OK, so I'm sure many of you would come up with other things to do but since I had a large order of dish cloths to fill by the middle of December I took advantage of all that time on my hands.

Here's the order all finished and ready for the customer.  Two dish cloths per set times 16 (four sets are not pictured here).

In order to break up the color monotony, I worked on other sets as well to list on my Etsy site.

I really enjoy making these 100% cotton dishcloths and they kept me occupied while CountryBoy was at work.

I finally got them photographed and listed on Etsy.  Now, my site has some items in it and is open for business, woot!  Just in time for Christmas!  (Also see side bar for link)

Things are slowly coming together for the move out west.  Items are getting packed up, a custom cargo trailer is being built, chickens and ducks are for sale (sad face), the outdoor cats have been placed in a no-kill shelter (another sad face) of which three have already been adopted and a fourth may have a home with one of the other cats that were already adopted, address changes are being made, etc.

Moving from a house that you've lived in for eight years to a 5th wheel is quite the ordeal.  I'm sure I'll have lots of stories for you on adjusting to a totally new way of life for me.  (This is old-hat for CountryBoy as he did this sort of work before we were married.)  I'll also have lots of time on my hands to craft and create lots of goodies!

Linking with

Till next time,

Miscellany Monday

I hope everyone had a nice weekend and now you're ready to enjoy another week!

I had a busy and productive weekend starting Friday morning with a garage sale.

As you know I've been doing some purging lately.  The sale was on short notice so I grabbed things here and there throughout the house, threw them in a box and took them to my brothers place where we held the sale.  I was blessed with some awesome help!  A couple of guys from church graciously loaded the big stuff in their truck and trailer and transported it 45 miles one way to my brother's place while I took several small loads in my Jeep.  Once the stuff was there, my sister and sister-in-law set everything up and even priced everything.  Even a neighbor of my brother pitched in and helped.  Prepping for a garage sale is a lot of work so I'm very thankful to everyone and so appreciative for all their help!  I could not have done it without them.  Seriously.

Most of my family (father and siblings) lives in a huge retirement community and the residents love checking out any type of sale that's going on in the neighborhood.  So, needless to say, I did pretty well in getting rid of a lot of my stuff.  I would say the garage sale was a success, woot!

I am going this afternoon to help pack up what is left.  We're going to have another sale in December.  By then, I should have the rest of the stuff I'm purging set aside, priced and ready to go.

~~~~~

LizzieBelle's feeling puny today.  She has not eaten her breakfast yet and it's late morning.  Her belly's rumbling and yet she won't eat.  She was also shivering this morning.  It was in the low 60's this morning when we got up so I put her sweater on.

Isn't she cute?

The sweater took some getting used to but I think when she realized it was keeping her warm she's tolerating it.  I'm taking her with me this afternoon when I pack up the garage sale stuff.  She loves to go for rides in the car!  Right now she's napping in her bed in the office while I write this post.  I hope she feels better soon.  Poor LizzieBelle!

~~~~~

This weekend, I finally finished designing my tags for my handmade goodies that I sell on my Etsy shop (which is currently empty due to lack of time to take photos and get anything posted on the site even though I have items that are ready to be sold, sigh).  As a graphic designer, I have found that I am the most difficult customer that I've ever had!  Too critical of my own work?  Probably.

Anyhow, after several attempts at coming up with something I like, I'm finally satisfied.  It's a good thing because I have orders to fill and get to the customer.  One such order is for a bunch of crocheted dish cloths where the customer paid in advance.  I finished the dish cloths several days ago but had to wait to get them out until my tags were finished.

They're now complete and ready to give to the customer.  Yay!

That's about it for this Miscellany Monday.  I'd best be getting LizzieBelle and I ready to head over and get packing.

Till next time,

2 Hours...

... more like two DAYS!

But, it's finished!  Woot!  Actually, I didn't work on it for two solid days, I do have other chores and blogs to read ya' know!  I am really happy with the way it turned out.  This is not the pattern that I originally started in this POST.  I was having trouble figuring out one of the stitches it called for so I chose a different one.  This pattern went much smoother with only a few times of ripping a huge section out, hahaha!  I figured with all the ripping out I was doing I was getting some good practice in!

I'm going to do another one in this pattern with red, green and white yarn for Christmas!  (I can also use it year round since those are the colors in my kitchen!)  So, are you supposed to actually wash dishes with these? They're too pretty for dishwashing!  I guess they wouldn't be called dishcloths if you weren't supposed to use them.

One of the other projects I did was make a chicken pooper scooper.  Yep, you heard me!  The girls are beginning to roost at night but not on their roosts... sigh.  A few of them have taken to roosting on the edge of their feeding trough.  SOooo, by morning... there is quite a bit of poop in the feed, yuck.  And, guess who has to get it out of there... yep, Chicken Mama!

Rather than using my hands, I decided I would make a chicken pooper scooper!  I went out to the shop and cut some scrap 1x2's in half and then cut them to size.  I wanted it to be exactly as wide as the bottom of the trough.  After screwing them together, I found some scrap hardware cloth and cut two pieces to size.  I stapled the first one down to the backside and then staggered the second piece to make smaller squares and stapled it down.  Next, I found a scrap piece of 1/2" wood dowel.  I drilled a 1/2" hole on one end of the square and glued the dowel in place.

It works pretty good.  

Now, if I could just get the girls to roost on the roosts at night instead of the edge of their trough!

I just realized that two of the projects I worked on yesterday and today were kind of extreme... from crocheting to working in the shop!  Oh well, that's how I roll here at the homestead!

Till next time,