The Box Wars

No, I don't mean the Boxer Rebellion. This is the territorial war between Petey & Shadow over the box from my new pair of Merrells. Petey, AKA boxcat & Shadow, AKA tentcat don't care about the shoes at all- the important thing is the box!!!

Constipated snake

Skip this post if the title is too disgusting.We didn't know that she was constipated. She normally eats 1 or 2 mice each week & she hadn't eaten for 2 weeks. Her skin looked as if it was trying to shed & we knew that shedding sometimes kills the appetite. We decided to give her a soak in a tub of warm water to help the shed. Peeping Tom, aka. Petey, decided to watch. After about 15 minutes, Tyke started to wiggle around & then expelled several white stones (kidney? urine) several turds, gas & more. My bet is that she will eat her mousie by Sunday. I'm just glad that she was in the bathtub & not the hot tub!!!!!

crab fondue or hot dip for Trina

I didn't forget that you wanted this recipe, I had misplaced it. Tonight, as I was looking for a recipe for Crab Imperial, I found the other recipe tucked into a cookbook.

Crab fondue or hot crab dip

8 oz cream cheese
5 oz jar of old English sharp cheese spread
7-8 oz crabmeat (OK, sometimes I use a whole pound)
2T milk
2T white wine
2t Worchestershire sauce
dash or 2 cayenne pepper
French or Portuguese bread cut into bite sized cubes or crackers

Melt cheeses over low heat stirring constantly. When melted & blended together, mix in remaining ingredients except for bread or crackers. Transfer to a fondue pot or chafing dish & serve with bread or crackers.

Any left over can be thinned with a little milk & served over pasta. Thinned a little more & it makes a great soup.

Enjoy

Mom's Birthday pin & postal service

Late, as usual, I mailed Mom's Birthday present by Priority mail at 2:30 Friday afternoon. The Post office delivered it to her door on Saturday! I sent cookies & this pin. The pin is approximately 2" X 3". Sorry about the quality of the picture. Somehow, it got saved in some weird format that I couldn't upload. I had to print it out & then scan it to convert to jpeg.

Bald eagle part 2

After layering my water fabrics, I stitched wavy lines to stabilize the background. I wanted this stitching to be very subtle, so I used very light gray nymo size 000 & a size 10 needle in the machine. It worked. The needle holes are more obvious than the thread & the holes should relax & close somewhat when I wash the final piece to remove the starch. I was very pleased that the machine handled the fine thread so well. Size 000 is about as thick as one of my hairs. I did discover that the bobbin should not be filled all the way, as the thread wanted to slide off sideways, but as soon as I removed about 1/8" from the bobbin, it behaved beautifully. I've got a 3 ounce cone of this thread & it's at least 3/4 full. I think that I'll be using it in the bobbin for free motion embroidery to cut down on bulk.
Next step was to spray glue my paper & stick it to some batting for a trapunto effect.

I trimmed the batting to reduce bulk & glued it to the back of my backing. I added a few pins to the edges for added security.

I then pinned a large hunk of one of my eagle colors to the front of the background, making sure that it covered all of the area that I wanted in that fabric.
Flipping back over to the back, I free motioned around the areas that I wanted to do in this fabric, using a short stitch to make sure that the paper would be perforated enough to come off easily later.
Back to the front, I trimmed the applique fabric close to the stitches. It's not necessary to trim real close in the areas that will be covered by other appliques. I repeated these steps with my second gray fabric.
On the back again, I sewed in the detail lines between feathers

Front view with the detail lines sewn. More to come.