Friday, January 20, 2012

Backyard chickens, snowed in, trichem fabric painting, cyber quilting bee without the quilting

I really hope the weather guys are right this time.  This snow and ice just needs to go away.   My chickens havent been out of the coop in 4 days.  Hash tag flings himself into my arms every time I go near the coop door.  Hester... bless her little chicken heart has been giving us an egg a day  even though there isnt really enough sunlight.  She's pretty stand up since the carnage in the coop.  She's taken a middle management stance.  Anytime  something is going on she runs  to the back door ,knocks until I answer and then marches  me to the problem.  Maybe we should have named her Lassie. 
The bright side of being snowed in?  Feral Jane and I have been skyping for hours as we each work on our  various knitting, crochet, painting and sewing projects.  Its pretty cool....  a cyber quilting bee (only without the quilting).   When the news guys started screaming STORM OF THE CENTURY!!!  I  figured I better find myself a couple of projects  to make  the cabin fever  less than nightmarish.  So, I picked up some liquid embroidery.  For those of you old enough to remember .... trichem, ball point,  fabric paint was all the rage in the 70's.  Now its almost impossible to find. But,  find it I did.  I also picked up several of Aunt Marthas embroidery transfers.  The first project was  painted onesies for reproducing friends in Portland.   I did cute little baby chicks and butterflies. Jimmy did a fire breathing dragon cooking a Buddha, while a giant Godzilla-like panda devastated  a serene village. (that ought ta put the  kid in therapy early).  I made  Feral Jane a matching set of Buddha tea towels.  The Good Typist  gets  hand painted   flowers on hand made pot holders.  And I will just keep going until the snow melts.  I'll make gifts until  everyone is covered and then I'll start sending the stuff to Etsy.  I looked.... There is a serious shortage of  tri-chem, hand painted,  tea towels on Etsy.   Yeah, I know this blog post  is singularly insipid.... But , Hey we are in deep winter.  There's not a lot to do  but sit in front of the fire and  do textile work  while the bread rises.  I should probably enjoy it.  A couple of months from now it will be all about soil and planting and  hatching baby chicks.

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