A little bit busy

I have been busy but not really with sewing or knitting. I have been busy the past few weeks looking after my little grandchildren. It seems that the whole family has had the flu and passed it on. One after the other, we all got it but we're okay now.

Little Teemu got another sleep sack. 

It has two different flannel linings. I was not paying attention and cut the first piece the wrong way. I did have enough of the little sheep flannel for both the front and the back but I just wasn't thinking when I pinned and cut the pattern.

Luckily I had enough thin quilt batting for the front and the back. I really didn't want to have to buy anything if I didn't have to.

The batting just gives it a bit more stability and warmth.

Here he is with his daddy, Casey, who just became a full fledged Canadian resident.

This photo is purposely upside down to show that I also made the front of this sleep sack upside down. It's the only way that the pattern fit the fabric. This way the animals on the fabric are the right way when Teemu looks at them.

This quilt may look a little familiar.

We finished putting it together and last week Marg found time to put it and the blue one on the frames.

Marg's daughter has MS and is wheelchair bound. This one is for her.

Initially, both quilts were bigger. Marg found out that her daughter was using a large bath towel on her lap to keep her warm. The lap quilt she had was just too big and so we revised our wheelchair lap quilt sizes to make them the same size as a large bath sheet. This way, nothing gets caught in the wheels.

On a sad note, our little Pixel left us. She was 19.5 which turned out to be about 94 in human years. 

I made these today along with two loaves of multigrain bread. These are Zucchini Tater Tots and you can find the recipe here. They are gluten free. Yesterday I made vegetarian chili to go along with the multigrain bread. We brought it all over to my son's place. With all the snow we got, his vehicle was snowed in and so he invited us over. It's all gone now.

Miscellaneous Stuff

"The 24th of May is the Queen's birthday and if you don't give us a holiday we'll run away and play." That's the little poem my dad taught me when I was little. It was something he learned as a little boy. Today is Victoria Day or, otherwise known as Firecracker Day. It's a holiday Monday and there are fireworks displays in a few places tonight at sundown. It's usually a coldish day and even though it may be 60F or 20C, it still feels cool outside. There is no sun right now and it may rain. Typical.

Prince Charles and Lady Camilla are visiting Canada (the Maritimes) for four days. Pop on over to Karen's blog to see photos.

Otherwise, I have been busy with odds and ends.

This is Midnight...

and this is Ben. They belong to my son Mark and his wife. They went away for the weekend and entrusted their care to me and my husband. We went over to feed them and to cuddle for a bit.

This was the sky earlier in the week. 

 It should have been April showers but it appears as if we are having May showers.

The backyard is greening up. I love my forsythia and my tulips but the squirrels seem to like my tulips too.

Here she is, my little Pixel with her yearly lion cut. Some people really get freaked out by it and others think it's cute.

I finished the challenge quilt I was working on. Here it is basted in preparation for hand quilting.

Here's another part of it. I'll show you the whole thing in a couple of days. It turned out quite different from how it started out in my head.

I'm working on baby things too but since it is supposed to be a secret, I can't show you. All in good time...

Just a few photos of some flowers I got for Mother's Day last weekend.

These were from my son Mark and his wife Kate.

I love the colours.

I love the variety too.

These were from my other son, Eric.

And this one lone white carnation I received when I went to the bank on Friday. 

I just happened to have my camera with me today.

These are the window displays at the Bata Shoe Museum. Colourful and very quilt-like.

Have a great week. I'm going to see what sewing I can accomplish today.

Today and this month

I just finished skypeing with these two - Luc and Laila. The tree behind them is a real tree and I am told that little Luc likes to un-decorate it. They have snow - we don't and today's high is supposed to be 6C.

This was a letter (I am assuming it's a Christmas card) that came in today's mail. I like the post office cancellation stamp. Children can write letters to Santa at North Pole and his postal code is - HOH OHO. This card wasn't even for us. The sender got one number wrong in the address and so, after a little bit of searching online, I found out that it is our neighbour, just up the street.

This past month I have baked a lot. Multigrain bread and banana loaves. Most go home with my children since my husband and I cannot eat a whole lot of bread and I really don't like freezing stuff.

This really was worthy of a shot. Pixel and Digit are sisters but they are not friends. They do not normally sleep this close to each other and when it did happen, I had to capture the moment. We are so lucky that these senior girls are still so very healthy.

Well, back to finishing up my sewing - well finishing a couple of things and then there are a couple more things to make. It will all get done. No stress, at least, not yet.

Whose cat?

I have two cats. They are sisters but they don't much like each other.

They may sleep close (rarely, and that's the reason I took this photo) but not snuggled up to each other as some cats like to do. Digit is the smooth or short-haired one. Pixel is the one with the long hair that we have to have shaved every once in a while. This is Pixel's favourite hangout during the day. In front of the sliding glass doors in the kitchen on top of her mat that my friend Judy makes and sells. There is a heat register under the mat and the runner so it's a toasty warm spot.

Digit usually snoozes on my husband's lap in the evening but she also takes up space on my legs if I have them up on the couch and covered with a throw. Sometimes Pixel comes over and lays down on me. She's more skittish and leaves quickly for no reason.

They are indoor cats but at times, my youngest son or my husband have been known to 'accidentally' leave the sliding door open in the kitchen so they can stroll around the backyard. Sometimes they are so quick that they leap out or escape just as you are going out. The problem is that they don't just stick to our yard and if they don't come back soon, on their own, I have to call them. Sometimes they are good and they come home when called and other times they take their own time about coming back. I don't like them to be out because I have seen too many cats on our streets that have met their end under the wheels of a vehicle. We also have nasty raccoons that have claws and stinky skunks.

Pixel is sweet but I have known family members to say that Pixel has hissed at them or tried to scratch them. I guess she just loves me because I have never encountered that. I don't tease the cats and I leave them alone when they are sleeping.

One day, not too long ago, while my daughter and I were in the kitchen, I spotted what looked like my little Pixel outside the sliding door looking in - waiting to come in. It's happened before when she has been let out by my husband or son but neither of them were home and my daughter had just come home. I thought that perhaps the basement door was left open but this is winter and no one had been down there. I was surprised to say the least but then I went closer. We have a peninsula in the kitchen and that partially obstructed my view of the whole scene.

This is what was really happening - all I saw at first was the cat peeking in. (Don't mind the overturned chairs. They were put there so Pixel had some peace and some space from a little puppy that was visiting.) It turned out that Pixel was safe inside and there was another cat that looked so much like Pixel and I guess it was curious to see my little kitty on the other side of the windows.

Once my heart got back to normal, I quickly got my camera to take these photos. We had seen the cat in the area before and I had mistaken it for my Pixel before too - calling for her to come in and wondering why it wasn't heeding my call. Meanwhile, Pixel was inside all along.

The hairy beasts got tamed

This is what Baxter looked like before his hours long clipping which was done in two sessions since he was stressed. He is a senior and this time we found that a couple of his previous groomers didn't want to deal with him. There was never any problem before. We have found a wonderful new (to us) groomers who really, really care about the animals. We will be bringing him back before he gets to the unmanageable state.

Don't mind the flyers on the floor and the unvacuumed rug. These were taken before I left to visit little Luc and I always like to leave the house clean when I leave.

Here's Baxter as he looks now. This is his summer wear. We know that he is losing his eyesight and the groomer found out that he has a hard time with depth perception. We have about four steps that he has to manage off the front porch and we have to keep his leash taut - otherwise he slides down or he thinks he can fly.

 Pixel has a nickname, it's fluffy kitty.

 Her sister Digit is known as skinny kitty but...

no longer. Since Pixel got clipped, she is now skinny kitty. Her groomer only does cats and I was told that the groomer wanted to keep her because she had never had such a good cat while she worked away. For those of you who don't know, the owner has to hold their cat while the groomer works. My husband took little Pixel in while I was away. She was matted and needed to be done. A nice summer cut for her too and another groomer we will be going back to.

Hairy beasts no longer but sleek animals.

Pixel

Well, it's almost spring and it seems that a lot of pets have been visiting their vets. My little Pixel is my long haired kitty. She and her sister Digit are now 13 years old.


My little sleeping Pixel. As you can see, she does have quite a long coat on her. She may look big but when you pick her up you realize just how little she weighs.

This is my favourite picture of Pixel because I actually got her little tongue in the shot as she was lapping up her milk. Digit doesn't drink milk and, sometimes, Pixel refuses to have any, even though she will sit beside the fridge and wait until I put some milk in a dish. I don't know if it's the type of milk she doesn't like after she sniffs it or if she is just fickle. Over the past few months we noticed that her coat was getting quite matted. Since she doesn't like to be brushed, I tried to cut some of the mats off her. Some of them were quite close to her skin and when we brought her in to see the vet to get her check-up, the vet suggested we bring her to a groomer. Now, not all dog groomers do cats but after trying one a bit farther away from us, we brought her in to the one just down the street from us. That groomer is the same one that trimmed Baxter last year. My son Eric brought Pixel in one afternoon when all the dogs were gone and this is how she came home looking.

 Please don't laugh.

 It is called a lion cut and I do think that Pixel likes it. She did seem a bit strange to Digit and Baxter at first.

 They have now gotten used to her new "do" and so have we.