Chickens!

Let's talk chickens. Last year I got 3 ex-commercial chickens from BHWT. They were rather bald, completely terrified and very flappy. As a bird novice I had to get my husband to get them out of the box because I was too scared of the flappy wings! 

This is the first photo of them. All trying to escape from me taking photos by hiding in the nest box. The one facing us, Blue, ended up being the most confident and bullying the one at the bottom of the pecking order, Brenda. This was the end of June 2019. Blue only lived 2 months, she just died in the coop one day. So for the last 8 months we had Brenda, the one with the most feathers and Bok Bok, with the least. Brenda was and still is impossible to touch and catch, she keeps her distance but now loves to be around us and is no longer scared. Bok Bok was put to sleep last week with suspected EYP. She had only ever laid soft shell eggs, stopped all together in the winter and come spring never restarted so I assume she was laying internally. 

Bok Bok on the left and Brenda. Blue sticking her head out. First day free ranging.

So this brings me to the point of the post. I am down to one lonely hen. And she is lonely. This hen that has always stayed as far away from humans as possible is now waiting at the back door for us to come out and when we do she follows us closely. She nearly killed me walking circles around my legs while I hung the washing out, haha. Long story short she needs company. So two new girls have arrived. One Bluebell and one Black Star.

This picture was taken by my 7 year old son. He did a much better job than I did. I kept missing them and getting bodies with no heads.

At the front is my Bluebell, Echo and at the back is Delta, a Black Star. Both are point of lay hens collected 4 days ago. They are a little over 16 weeks. 

Brenda hates them so far. This is my first integration with hens and so I am likely doing it wrong but she never passes up an opportunity to hang on to the feathers at the back of their necks. There has been no blood so far but we are only allowing supervised contact for short periods as the two young ones end up stressed. I know the pecking order needs to be established but I am not yet confident with how much is okay and when to leave alone so erring on the side of caution.

The new girls are slowly getting more confident when Brenda is not hassling them and they are learning to come out of the coop on their own now. I had to physically put them in the run on the first day so they could have a drink and something to eat and put them back in the coop for bed.

I'm hoping in time Brenda will learn to love her new friends and that they provide us with some yummy eggs as a bonus. I will of course update our progress here.

Sewing: Lightning Leggings

So I made another thing. This one is 6-12 months for my 8 week old baby. This is the fastest thing I have ever sewed. I've mostly done bags with one tunic dress for my older daughter but they have all been lined to hide the seams. Some have needed fastenings, bags need straps which are fiddly and annoying. Last week's Sandcastle Bucket Hat had loads of steps and was reversible so took me an age. The beauty of the lightning leggings was that it was made from jersey fabric, my first time using it, and unlined. So I just had 5 piece to sew together. No hemming because I did the cuffed version. No elastic in the waistband. Just a few almost straight lines of stitching. 

I only have a regular sewing machine which I purchased second hand. It only came with the standard foot and the cheap ebay set I bought don't seem to like my machine and breaks needles! This means I'm limited to the range of stitches I can use. I went for the lightning shaped stretch stitch and it did an amazing job. As I said, first time sewing with stretchy fabric and I am chuffed to bits I managed to make it work. I did two rows of stitching, the first made the seam and the second was in the seam allowance to stop the edges unravelling. Most people would, it seems, use a coverstitch or overlock machine. I'm pretty sure I can't use my coverstitch because of my foot issue so the lightning stitch was the best option and worked brilliantly. I tried a regular zig zag on scrap fabric but it made the edges stretched and wavy so won't be doing that again! 

Anyway, here is the finished product. 

It's too big for my small one yet (not helped by my printing test square being bigger than it should have been, oops) and is in the wash currently. A) hoping it will shrink and B) hoping the stain that appeared on the fabric in storage will wash out. Typically, despite trying to avoid it altogether the stain has ended up on the very front.  

Sewing: Sandcastle Bucket Hat

So I have recently discovered sewing patterns by Made by Jack's Mum. They can be found on Etsy. I have dabbled a bit with sewing but with a new baby in cloth nappies these patterns have really sparked my interest. Regular shop bought clothes do not leave enough space for a cloth bum and specific clothes for cloth are expensive. Fabric is expensive too but I at least get the pleasure of buying it and sewing it 😂. 

The first pattern I have tried from MBJM is the Sandcastle Bucket Hat. I'm not sure this was the easiest to start with as a relative sewing newbie. It is all curves and is pretty fiddly not to mention it is reversible so needs double the amount of pieces cut. Still, I learnt alot from this project and despite a few blips and lots of unpicking stitches and swearing, I have two passable hats and they look pretty damn cute on. 

The picture is a bit pants. I left the baby inside so was rushing and had a chicken 'helping'. I'm suprised her feet never made it in the shot as she was hoping for something yummy to eat. The hats were a definite disappointment to her.

My blips included sewing my age 4 year top piece to my age 6-12 month sides. Then later on I was nearly finished and the baby woke from a nap so I rushed to finish the last bit of top stitching. I ended up folding and stitching the side of the hat underneath the top stitching. Again I had to unpick. Lesson learnt, rushing does not save you time. 

Both hats are the same, just different sizes. Both have yellow on one side and pink on the other. My 4 year old picked the fabrics from my stash. They are very light weight which is not a bad thing while wearing but means they are hard to stand up for a photograph. I put a lightweight interfacing in the brim to stop it being too floppy.

I finished these hats yesterday and have already cut out the pattern for my next MBJM project. Watch this space for leggings suitable for a fluffy baby bum.

Welcome everyone

Welcome to my blog. My first post will be a little about me and the direction I hope to be taking here.

I am mum to 5. 3 boys; 13, 11 and 7 and 2 girls; 4 and 7 weeks. The blog is about my life. My life as a mum, as a spinner, knitter, gardener, consumer. There are too many aspects of me and my life to just pin down one part of me to blog about. I have many goals I want to achieve and sometimes I need to research and can't find the information that I want or presented in a way that suits me so I want to share my experiences.

I first drafted this post over 3 years ago but now I am branching more into sewing and less in to knitting the want for somewhere to share my crafting has returned. I would usually use Ravelry for knitting, spinning and weaving but I can't share sewing and baking projects in the same way on there. If anyone is here and reading this, Hello and Welcome. I look forward to sharing my journey with you.