outside in the big cage

Today I put them in this big cage I got from craigslist. Like anything else they huddle together then once they see it is ok then they set about to check out the sights. The close up is to see how the feathers are growing in now and she is sitting on the roost Dave made. They were also able to get dandelions that were peeking thru the wire. I think they will be able to stay in this for a while and we are going to put it in a box so it will be like a coop. This is a video of them flying.

17 days old

They are starting to look more like chickens. They have back feathers and wings. They also fly around a bit. I am really enjoying having these little peeps around. Today Dave gave them some dandelion leaves. At first they acted like it was some thing evil till they noticed it didn't move unless they picked it up. Then they went to town on eatting it.

11 days old

Here they are at 11 days old. I have named 3 of them so far. There is penquin, blondie and ginger. I have made a short video on youtube.com

This is the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIrTdx_rDEI

chicken coop design

This is a picture from the chicken coop book I got from the library.

Our coop looks simular to this one here. We just have to make the roof slant, put plywood over the run, add a roost and nests to ours. Right now it is the coop is taken apart so we can clean it and put the roost and the nests in.

More pictures later when we get it done and the chicks inside :D

5 days old

Here is a picture of them sleeping in the corner at 5 days old they are getting their wing feathers in pretty good now. Today I put some food in my hand and after a bit I had 4 or more in my hand pecking food out. I thought it was neat that they were eatting out of my hand.

Here a chick, chick..... there a chick, chick

We got chicks yesterday from Del's farm supply in Port Orchard. We got a half dozen of Amercuana chicks.

Our chicks at 3 days old.

Here is a link of what they will look like http://www.mypetchicken.com/Ameraucana-B5.aspx

Baby blanket beginings

This is the start of a continuous granny square baby blanket. I have been working on it off and on for a week. The yarn is a red heart yarn called ocean. I think it is a pretty color for a baby boy.

I have to have it ready for the Mom by the end of March.

Camping at Ike Kinswa

We left on Friday afternoon loaded up with our kayaks and trailer to Ike Kinswa state park. This is our 1st trip camping in our fifth wheel trailer. We had to go to Seattle the day before to pick up the racks at SRK so we could take our kayaks as we were going to meet up with some of the South Sound Area Kayakers on Saturday to paddle around Mayfield lake. According to Terry West the POC we went a total of 11 miles. It was really beautiful as there were waterfalls along the way. We had a camp site on the lake so all we had to do was put our boats in the water and meet up with them across the lake at the boat ramp. As you can see above there was a beautiful scenes from our camp site and the way we had to put our kayaks on our truck.

New paddles

Dave made my grandson Keegan and I greenland paddles.

We went out to test drive mine and once I got use to it I really enjoyed paddling with it.

We went to the boat ramp in Port Orchard to paddle and once we got near Gorst there were tons of jelly fish and I felt like I was flipping pancakes instead of paddling!

Febuary sock of the month

I have joined the Knit and Chat on delphi forums sock of the month. This is the 1st sock for the month of Febuary. Actually it is my 1st completed adult sock. It is a tube sock done in a rib stitch pattern. I am going to give the completed set to my daughter Dawn for her birthday later this month.

Amy is my lovely model for this picture :)

Baby gift set

I made this cute set for a friend's daughter. The hat and socks are the easiest I have made to date. I am sure I will be making more of these during the year because I know of at least 2 more babies that have yet to be born.

The background is a table runner I crocheted for use on our kitchen island.

Here she is.............

Raidan Lily, she is almost 6 months old and a bundle of fun. She is wearing a hat I made for her using red heart yarn.

My felting adventure

Now that the holidays are over I decided to dig into felting. I have been inspired by Cat Bordhi's Treasury of magical knitting so much so I got her 2nd treasury of magical knitting. I seen a pattern for a coffee cup cozy on Knit and chat at Delphi forums. Being as I have a hard time holding on to those esspresso cups as the burn my fingers, even with the card board ring around them I thought that this is what I wanted to make for me.

Something quick and easy right???? This is a crochet pattern so I had to look up the stitch so I could make it then I was on my way.
Once it was done it was huge but I just figured it would shrink down to the right size once it was washed. If you look to the right and see that curly fuzzy round thing you will see what it looked like once it was felted. So I decided I liked it though cuz it reminded me of myself. I have been having some memory issues lately and so I named this my Fuzzy brain. Later I plan on adding some beads to it to make it sparkle.

I then bought some more yarn and tried it again but this time I did my own pattern that worked out just fine for me. I made mine with the ruffle and Dave's is just a round as I really don't think he would wanted a ruffle on his.

I used a j hook
ch st 28 joined it together
ch st 2 then hdc in the next st
join then repeat till you have 8 rows.
rows 9 to 11
you ch st 2 then 2 hdc in each stitch.
(If you don't want a ruffle stop at row 8)
This makes your ruffle then bind off.

Toss it in washer add a little bit of detergent
Set on lowwatter /hot water setting.
with tennis balls to help aggitate your cozies.

Memory book for my Mom

Last summer about this time Amy and I went to see my Mom and Richard in Northern Calif. for a week. While we were there my Mom gave me some lovely photos of her family. I decided since then I wanted to make my Mom a fabric memory book with some of these old photos.

The 1st photo is of my Grandma and she is holding me. I find this a special photo because she rarely smiled in any of the photos that have been taken of her. The 2nd photo is of her Mother who was my Great Grandma, I never met her but it is really nice to have such a lovely photo of her.

Spring break, the week away!

Here is a few photos from our spring break!

Amy and I at Illaya's in Sequim
Dave and Amy practicing at Crescent beach
Dave at La Push



We took the week off and spent the week up in the Port Angeles area. For the beginning of the week we had our daughter Amy with us. We spent each day at Crescent beach. Dave had just bought a new sit on top surf kayak. Amy and Dave went out her in his sea kayak with him in the surf kayak. She got around the island and splash with lots of laughing as she went over too far and fell out. So it took a few minutes but she got back in. Then they went over by the rocks he went into the surf to see how his kayak was on the waves. Then they came back in to the shore so he could help her practice different ways to get back in the boat.

Monday, Amy and I went to Sequim to see my friend Illaya. We spent some time visiting at her home and then she took us to lunch. We had a great time with Illaya but it ended too soon.



On the next day we were all out in the water with Dave getting Amy in the white water boat and the surf kayak. I was out there playing in the sea kayak. Tiny waves are fun to practice bracing on.

We took Amy back on Tuesday as she had other things she wanted to do on her break. We then went camping for 3 days at Salt Creek.

On Wednesday we went out to La Push! The waves there were great and Dave got to surf his new kayak there to see how it worked in bigger waves. He had a great time out there while I read or slept on the beach....ahhhh how nice it is to relax on the beach!!!

Thursday we spent hiking around on the beach and the trails at Salt Creek. Its a really nice camp ground even with the teenagers who were camping next to us LOL

Friday its back in town again for the Port Angeles kayak symposium! We helped out again in the morning. Then we spent time talking to Sarah and Gerry at the Washington water trails tent. We later in the day had the wild harvest class with Jennifer Hahn and Mac Smith. This was a great learning experience on how to harvest sea weeds and small shell fish.

Saturday I had the wild cookery class with Jennifer and Mac this was so much fun watching them cook up stuff from the harvesting we did the night before! Dave had some classes in the afternoon and our friend Bob came out so we were hanging out with him till the slide show that Jennifer had that night about her solo paddle through the inside passage! It was a wonderful slide show and she is a gifted story teller that I bought the book just so I could read it for myself.

Sunday we both had volunteer duty and on the water classes which we both enjoyed. We had a great week and I can't wait to do it again.

Pretty knitting needles

I finally got around to making up the needles for knitting
multidirectional scarf.

I had borrowed the book, Modular knits by Iris Schreier from my local library. In the book it says to take dpn's and add something at the top to keep the stitches from falling off the needle's. So I found some polymer clay bead's that I got in a swap, then I glued them on.

I think they look pretty nice if I do say so myself.

Circle of friends

Circle of friend's








I finished my project for this month for the Bead Art Exploration. It is a bracelet that I have called "Circle of friends". The beads in it remind me of a song that my daughter's camp fire group use to sing at the end of the meeting.
If I remember it correctly it goes something like this.

Make new friends but keep the old one is silver and the other is gold.

That's about all I can remember but I was thinking about the lesson for this month and this song came to mind.

So once I finished this bracelet that I was just making for myself it all came together for me in my mind. It is made with magnet beads that I had bought at Ellen's lbs while I was there with her a couple week ends ago and turquoise cathedral beads. I have some friends who have very magnetic personalities and some that real gems in my life and they are my "circle of friends."

Edited to add:
The magnetic beads are suppose to help with arthritis pain which I have problems with my right wrist so that is where it is going to be worn.

Have a happy week, Helaine

Learning to spindle

I now have a spindle but I did not know how to use it. This lead me to looking for ways to learn how to use it before I get my shetland wool back.
So I joined the "Spindler's" yahoogroup, on there I met Heidi from The Artful Ewe. She told me of the local spinning guilds and the fact that she will have people over on Wednesday to try out spinning wheels at her place. There was going to be someone there who could help me learn how to use my spindle!!!
This was pretty cool as there was wool, books, wheels, looms and spindles everywhere I turned. I got to watch people on spinning wheels and see some different wheels in action. I got the help I needed plus some yummy wool to turn into yarn and a spindle to try out at home. So much fun and so little time to do it in.

Unusual pin from Ellen

On the Bead Art Exploration for January, we had to do an unusual project. It had to be made with something unusal. So Ellen made hers with lichen and beads. Here is the one she made for me at the retreat this last week end. She is so sweet to suprise me like that. I was sitting next to her the whole time she was making it LOL Then she gives it to me!

Woman's PJ retreat week end with Ellen

This is what I made this last week end while I was at the woman's pj retreat week end with my friend Ellen. This year was a bit different as there was a huge storm heading our way early Saturday. We woke up to no power with huge winds that had gusts up to 60 mph. From where we were sitting in the craft area we could see huge waves and the trees were swirling around.
We worked on our projects and mine was a felted cap by the time I got done with it. I had started it at home by wet felting around a tennis ball. Once I had finished tossing it around in the dryer I cut it in half to get the ball out. I used seeds from a necklace I have had for a very long time and an assortment of beads. On the top is a felted ball that I beaded before I had attached it to the cap. On another note there has been mention that it would look cool as a "boobie cup" instead of a cap for a doll. Hehehee