I'm not hedging around anymore

So here's the promised little cutie. She told me she wants to live with you. I think she's scared of the grabby little hands that tried to claim her as their own when she made her debut from my sewing room. I followed the tutorial at matsutake to make this. I thought she needed ears when she was done so she had something to wear her bow on. Do hedgehogs have ears? I have to admit that she's probably going to be the only one of her kind that issues from my sewing room. The tutorial was great, but I'm not a fan of hand sewing. My fingertips are still sensitive from the amount of sewing required to get her ruffles attached to her little hedgie body. I won a giveaway a few months back from Bit of Whimsy Dolls for a set of fat quarters. So I finally cut into those for the fabric, and I think she's the prettiest little pastel hedgehog I've ever met. Like I already mentioned, she's a bit shy and might not be the best playmate for young children. But I think you'll find her quiet and very easy to take care of. She even comes with her own nibbles. A pair of sweet strawberries made from a tutorial found over here at Embroideroo. (If you visit her blog, be sure to check out the pictures of the birds she feeds. She has parrots come to her bird feeders. I'm so jealous! But she's also never seen a humming bird in person, so I do have that. But I really want wild parrots...*sigh*)

So there you have it. That's my one year blogiversary gift I'm offering to one lucky reader. Because I've been so tardy in posting pictures, I've decided to extend the deadline for entering by just a couple days. So I'll leave it open until Saturday evening on the 14th. Enter by commenting on my previous post. It's not a big thing, but I hope she will bring a little bright spot to whomever gets to claim her just like your comments bring a bright spot to my day!

You don't want to miss this. Seriously...

Wow! Bet you can't guess what today is--

It's my first year anniversary of starting my blog. It feels a bit like cheating since I'm just getting back from my extended Summer break, but one year ago today, I published my first blog post. It was a beautiful fall day and I'd taken the kids to the park in town to take advantage of the day. Unfortunately, looks like the weather isn't going to cooperate for a repeat of that since the high here is supposed to be 52 F.

I always marvel at how fast children grow. It's hard to believe how they change in a year. Just look at that round little face on Holly! I had her in the front packer still. And Ivy has changed so much in the last year. She's nearly as tall as me now. It's like it just happened overnight because in a very short time period it seems everyone has commented on it. Not just people who haven't seen her in a while, but family friends who see her at least weekly if not more. Finn seems the least changed of the three. Of course he's grown, too and is a source of endless entertainment with the things he says. Holly keeps right up with Finn. I know that if he is doing something, she will be right behind him--good or bad. Grandma found this out the other day when they were visiting. She had given them cookies and later Finn had more cookies. She questioned how he had gotten them, and he admitted to dragging a chair to the counter. Sure enough, next thing you know, Holly is climbing up onto the chair as well. Obviously, she is not quite as coordinated at the stunts as he is, but she isn't about to let anything that trivial slow her down.

Here's some pictures of Finn from today when he walked with me up to feed the pigs. He has that watermelon candle in his treehouse, and I wanted a picture of him "eating" it, but instead I got a shot of him spitting seeds. Pretty cute, I thought. I was hoping for pictures of the other two also, but Holly was asleep when I got back to the house and Ivy wasn't interested.

And here's our piggies, finally. I have to say they aren't my favorite animal on the farm. They are so big and act starved to death every time you feed them. We put them way up the hill since so many people said things about how bad they would smell. So they see you coming with food from way off and start squealing (screaming, really) their heads off. They pulled the trough off the side of their little barn and have rooted the dirt over in front of the gate so much now that I can't even get in the pen. We were hoping to get them taken care of next week, but nobody told me that you have to schedule time with your butcher months in advance! Seriously--they are booked through January 7th as of yesterday. Wow--I really don't want another two months of slogging food up the hill. Plus we only planned to have them through the warmer months, so don't have a plan in place for dealing with frozen water. My dad found out a few more names of butchering shops yesterday, so I'm going to give those a try.

Now if you've hung around to get to the end of the post, I have a little something for you to watch for. After Holly went to bed last night, I went to the sewing room hoping to get together a little gift to celebrate my one year blogiversary. I had hoped to whip it together last night and get pictures, but let's say it proved to be a little more involved that I thought, and Holly wound up waking up around eleven, and I needed to get her settled back down. You know how it goes. So it didn't get finished last night. I'm hoping I will be able to get to it sometime today. So there could be pictures later today. I won't give anything away right now, but I like the way it's turning out, and I hope you will too! So just comment on this post, and I'll randomly pick from all the comments. I tried to think of something interesting to comment about, but I'm going to leave that totally up to you. Tell me what you're looking forward to this weekend. Tell me something that made you happy this week. Tell me about something you are making or have made recently. Just say "hi" and let me know you were here. Not too difficult-just make sure I can contact you from your comment or profile or something. I have a feeling not too many people are hanging around anymore, but I could be totally wrong. That ought to make your chances at winning that much better, though. But if you're inclined to send your friends here, please do. I'll let you have another entry if you feel like blogging about this and sending a few folks this way. In fact, if someone mentions that they came via your blog, I'll include an extra entry for you and for that person so be sure to mention that to your readers if you are inclined to blog about it. And I'll throw in extra entries for my blog followers. Just leave an extra comment for each way you enter.

So let's just tally up the ways you can get entries:

1. Obligatory comment
2. Blog about this giveaway
3. Mention or be mentioned the blog post that sent you here
4. Be a follower of Petalz and Finz

I think the extra entries are probably serious overkill given the amount of actual entrants that I expect will participate, but I happen to love a few extra entries myself on giveaways, and I figured you might as well. Woohoo! It's my first giveaway. Too bad I can't show you what it is yet, but keep your eyes peeled. I think I will close entries a week from today. So that's next Thursday, but I'm actually going to call it at midnight EST Wednesday, November 11th, so I can announce the winner next Thursday. Updated 11/10: Since I've just gotten to posting pictures of the prize, I'm going to extend the time for entries by a couple more days. So the new end date will be this Saturday, Nov. 14. Thanks for playing and reading!

Wordless Wednesday #13

"Lil' Sleepyhead"

Thomas Outfit

Sometimes, I feel bad for not sewing more for Finn. But girls' clothes just tend to be much cuter, and there are more patterns and ideas out there for girls' stuff. So the girls tend to make out better than he does. Browsing Craftster.org the other day, I found a link to this tutorial from the Smiley Pomegranate blog for treasure pocket pants that are just adorable for boys or girls. Put that together with a vest pattern that was free in last month's YouCanMakeThis newsletter and you've got a really cute boy outfit. Yay!

Of course, that doesn't stop your little girl from screaming until she gets to wear the Thomas pants that her brother shows next to no interest in... Why do I bother?

Where did summer go?

Here I am back to my woefully neglected blog. Last time I posted was the middle of summer. My husband wonders why I even have any followers left. Didn't bother explaining to him that it would probably take more effort to remove somebody than to let them just sit there doing nothing. But nevertheless, I'm happy to see that nobody removed me from their blogroll. So I'm back now and will try to make my posting more regular again.

Here's a quick (thought I could be quick, but turned out, I couldn't) re-cap. We did our first real garden this year, and it did surprisingly well! We canned potatoes, salsa, hot pepper butter, and pizza sauce--maybe some other things too, but that's all I can think of right off the top of my head. Oh, pickles! We had yummy fresh cucumbers for weeks. I miss them already. I have never loved a cucumber like I loved those! And my picky boy, Finn, would just gobble them up.

We sold Bambi's boys (above) and because of several issues, I didn't manage to ever get her milking. Hopefully next year. We kept Betty Bob's doeling, Star (on the right below). I am milking Betty Bob and Bella and getting a little over half a gallon most days just milking once a day. Plenty for our family, and it leaves us enough to try cheese making and plenty of puddings and yummy stuff.

We sold half a dozen of our pullets, but we are still getting around a dozen eggs a day. The guineas are all grown up, and I'm pretty sure they are both females. Kind of bummed about that as I was hoping we would get a pair so we could have little keets next year. We hatched a duck out over the summer that I called Uno because it was the only egg that hatched and Ivy called Sparkle because I think she wanted to embarrass it, but one day it just disappeared. (I think this may be the only picture I got of it because my camera apparently decided to take the summer off with my blog--see it right in the middle?) No clue what happened to it--just totally gone without a trace. Also down one chicken like that. I managed to convince myself we were down another chicken and spent a few days counting and recounting chickens until it finally dawned on me that the one I was looking for was one of the ones we sold. Feel free to share the long laugh I had at my own expense.

We have two pigs that are ready to head to market. I don't think I have any pictures of them. Sorry, will take the camera up there in the next couple days. Along the lines of not naming your food, these two never did acquire names. We put them far, far from the house because we had many, many people telling us how they would smell, but they really aren't that bad. Yeah, you can smell them when you stand outside their pen, but they weren't all that people made them out to be.

I've been doing a bit of sewing lately and have some things to share over the next few days. But here's a little peek at a pattern I was delighted to be given an opportunity to test for Whimsy Couture. I am really liking her patterns. This is the third one I have made up and have more to try. I'll post a bit more about this pattern in the next few days.

So to end things up, here's a shot of Holly and Finn that I really love. They were sitting together on the couch like this the other day, and I actually managed to get to the camera in time. Nobody told them to sit like that. I was doing things in the kitchen and looked over and there they were. So cute! Can't believe how big they are getting.

Giveaway Week at Bit of Whimsy Dolls!

Sarah over at Bit of Whimsy Dolls is hosting a week of giveaways this week! I know I've mentioned (more than once!) before how much I enjoy her patterns. She's started the week with a three pattern giveaway. Although I have a lot of her patterns already, far be it from me to say no to more. She's got a new and very cute kitten pattern, and I think I'd have to also choose the pig pattern and probably Finnegan the fox for my little Finn. Keep checking back through the week to see what else she is giving away--I know I will be!

I don't think I ever posted a picture of the above cutie. She's Millie Monkey made from the Little Peanut pattern, in case you were wondering. Millie's a little something I won from another giveaway on the Bit of Whimsy blog. Sarah made her from a shirt in recognition of Earth Day--wasn't that a cute way to repurpose some clothing that might not have been worn again? Ivy tried to claim her, but she made it safely to my sewing room where she graces a top shelf and smiles down on me whenever I have a chance to work in there.

Wordless Wednesday #12

"At the 'goat-eo'"