Happy Birthday, Samwise!

It's Sammy's birthday today! He, Frodo and Aramintie are three years old today! Here are two pictures of Samwise. That is me holding him today. He's not too good when it comes to pictures as he blinks all the time. :) Frodo on the other hand . . . he's a camera ham and just loves having his picture taken!



Happy birthday, Samwise! I love you soooooo much. He's the sweetest cat in the world!

Lots of Stuff from the Wool Gathering!

Here is the first in, hopefully, a few posts to show you all the cool fiber that we got at the Wool Gathering. This is everything that we brought home as it looked when we piled it on the sofa upstairs. I haven't sorted it yet, but that is on today's agenda, then I'll take pictures of some of the individual stuff!

We got all kinds of cool stuff. Angora, Mohair, Lama, Alpaca, Wool (inc. Corrydale, Icelandic, Romney and more) and Buffalo! Elizabeth has tons of projects lined up for me, so I think that I'm in for a busy winter. More pics coming soon!

Meet Another Prince: Tony Martin

Just thought that I'd post another of my princes for you. Nothing much happened yesterday, though I did get to start making a little doll in the afternoon. I've got the body finished, so now he needs some clothes. Elizabeth and I want to make a set of dolls that look like the Barkleys from the TV show The Big Valley.

Enjoy the song, and hopefully there will be more coming. :)

(Shown in picture above from left: Tony Martin, Kenny Baker, Allan Jones, Dennis Morgan and Gordon MacRae.)

This time, you're listening to Tony Martin! Here he is singing "If It's You" from the 1941 Marx Brothers' film, The Big Store.

More About the Tomato Show . . .

Here are some more pics from the Fair. Dad's fish won People's Choice in the woodcarving category. This is his largest carving to date (a large iguana is in the works) and he's so proud of it. Isn't it beautiful?! Most people think that it is a taxidermy mount when they see it for the first time. He's also carved a Bluegill for me that is equally amazing.

Elizabeth also won a People's Choice ribbon (actually, she and Dad each won two ribbons) for her woodcarving of Roy Rogers' boot. This was in the original design category. That means that she did not have a book or pattern to make it with. She actually just had a picture of Roy sitting on a fence with half of his boot showing. She carved it from a solid block of wood and then did all of the painting herself. Wonderful sister that she is --- she gave it to me for my birthday!

As for their other two ribbons: Dad won in the fly-tying category and Elizabeth won in the Jewelry & Beading category. She made a vase of beaded flowers (it is a large hyacinth and some kind of daisies). Gorgeous aren't they!? Dad's flies are all classic bass flies from patterns from the 1890s. I was so happy that those won, as they are going to be my Christmas present! Yay! What a great Pop!


Here are some assorted pics of the fair outside of our building. The top three are the vegetable tent where all of the vegetables, canned goods, baked goods and tomatoes are displayed. That is me standing next to the prize-winning "largest" pumpkin. It weighed 173 pounds! The next picture is of Mom with some of the canned goods that we entered: watermelon pickles and . . . something. The last two pics are of the "main strip" of the fair. They close the highway through the center of town and put all of the concessions and rides on it. We also have an arts and crafts show and a parade on Saturday.



Well, this should bring you all up to date on what's been going on around here this last week. Upcoming/current adventures include re-modeling the hallway and stairway. Dad spent the whole time while we were at the fair up on scaffolding stripping wallpaper and priming the walls. He's also been cutting some wainscotting to go up along with the banisters.

This weekend we are planning on going to the Wool Gathering in Southern Ohio for a day. We've been waiting for this for almost a year! I am really looking forward to getting some felting supplies and new roving colors. I'll post pictures next week. You can check the show out here: http://www.awoolgathering.com/

Just click on the pics to enlarge them. More later . . .

My Felting Won People's Choice at the Fair!

Here is the first Tomato Show entry. I've got more pictures than this, but I'm really supposed to be eating lunch right now, so I haven't got time to upload them all. Uh oh!

My felted-wool birds won a the People's Choice ribbon in the Fiber category at the Tomato Show! It's a cool orange ribbon (my second-favorite color) and a pair of engraved scissors. I am planning to add one more bird to the tree, but it'll be next week or later. It's going to be a bluebird sitting in the empty spot on the right-hand side there.

All of the birds are types that we've got around here. From left to right they are: a Cedar Waxwing, a Barn Swallow (my favorite bird), a Gold Finch, a Mockingbird, a Cardinal, a Robin, a Titmouse and a Downy Woodpecker is perched on the trunk.

Originally, I was just making a couple of birds for Mom to use as Christmas ornaments, but she went and found the tree at Hobby Lobby and had the idea of a whole tree full of birds. The Barn Swallow was my idea. We have bunches of them here and they are my favorites. When I mow the lawn they come and fly all around the tractor and eat the bugs that are coming out of the grass!

This was the first year that we added categories for woodcarving, fly-tying, jewelry, beading and weaving into the show, so we're hoping that next year there will be a bigger turn-out as far as entries go. We've all been working hard this year to make entries for the new categories, so that we could kind "pad them out" and give people an idea of what they can enter from now on. In the end one third of the entries were ours!


Above are some pictures of the room where the entries are during the fair. We share a room with photography and there were tons of pictures this year! I'll put in some more pictures soon. Got to go eat . . . it's corn on the cob and I wouldn't want to miss that!

Busy at the "Tomato Show"

Well, this is just a quick post to let you all know that we are in the middle of our local fair. It is the "Tomato Show" and we are in charge of the Fine Handcrafting division. This means that we handle exhibits of needlecrafts, weaving, wood carving, fly-tying, beading, jewelry and the like. The show started on Wednesday and it will end tomorrow evening (Saturday).

I am hoping to remember to take the camera today and get some pictures to post here. The theme for our fair is "Fun in the Sun", so we've got the place decorated to the hilt. Our division and the photography division share the Senior Citizens' building. We spent all day Tuesday decorating the place with little pop-up palm trees, beach balls, banners, flowers and stuff like that.

Check out the website for the show here.

More later . . .