Updates - new FO, new roosters, new (old) treadle machine, project progress

Several updates here.  I have actually managed to be a bit busy!  The baby went to visit his mom for a few days (including for his 2nd birthday!) and I tried to fit in as much as I could.

First of all, here is a photo collage of goats.  My beautiful baby buckling is there, along with my two milkers, Snowball and Dory.  I'm still milking twice a day, and making cheese several times a week.  I've been making great progress in the consistency of my mozzarella - and as soon as I say that, I come up with a batch (like today) that disproves my statement!  Fortunately, we just eat the mistakes.

I also managed to construct the zippered bag pattern I mentioned in a previous post.  I didn't end up making it with the rooster fabric; I'll make a tote bag out of that at a later date.  I did, however, use one of my favorite fabrics, a denim with purple flowers.  I think it came out nice, but I wish it had a little more stiffness to its shape.  It's kind of floppy, and because of the shaping present with the zipper, I'd like it more stiff.  It did come out nice just the same, even though I had to put that LONG zipper in twice.

We went to Laconia one of those days to pick up this vintage treadle machine.  The brand is New Home (originally produced in Orange, MA).  It is a vibrating shuttle machine with leaf tension (my favorite).  It came with several shuttles and needles in the drawers, not all of which belong to this machine.  That's a mystery for another day.  It cleaned up nice, though, and sews well!  The decals are not pristine, but they are nice, and even the bobbin winder works well.  I had one extra leather treadle belt available and it went on this machine easily.

And more recently, I've been working on a little bit of everything.  The Perimetera shawl by Gina House is progressing, and has just moved up to a longer circular needle.  It would have been farther along if I hadn't had to pull out a dozen rows last week to fix some mistakes.  I now have the center 25 stitches in each quadrant segregated with stitch markers, and I'm up to 14 or 15 stitches on either side of the stitch marker.  The pattern is relatively simple until you reach the point where 125 stitches are in each quadrant, between the main stitch markers (the little Wee Ones sheep & chickens in a previous photo).

I'm working on some spinning here and there - the superfine stuff on my lightest lightweight spindle, and the rest of the "Lobstah" red on my Matchless wheel, as well as some rather blah light blue on the Minstrel wheel.  The blue was part of a monthly "surprise box" - it convinced me not to resubscribe.  The color is just slightly off a bland dishwater color.

I also picked up a languishing Block of the Month project - Susan's Folly.  I have some chain piecing to do here - sashes and cornerstones, which will then be attached to the finished blocks in preparation for the next steps.  All of the small blocks are done for this quilt; next are finishing steps, and then setting triangles and block assembly, then borders.

I discovered this past week that having a lot of instructions to follow is fairly intimidating to me.  I can do okay if I don't keep all of them in mind as I start.  I can read through all the instructions so I don't miss something along the way, but having a bunch of stuff to do can create UFOs on my part.  It's far easier for me to sew together 150 square-and-rectangle sashings and cornerstones than to follow the step-by-steps to create a zipper bag.  (The intimidation factor of the zippers may have played a part there.)

Oh, and the new roosters - we lost several chickens to foxes again this week.  I need to figure out what to do about that.  In the meantime the chickens are confined to their coop (which has an indoor and an outdoor section).  One of the chickens we lost to a fox was my rooster.  We find having a rooster to be quite valuable - they watch and warn of predators, fertilize eggs should I want to hatch any, and let us know (by crowing) when things around the barn are not as they should be.  When I realized my rooster had given himself to protect his girls, I immediately went to Craigslist to find some new ones.  I know from raising chickens for more than a few years that there are always too many boys.  I found two young cockerels, not even crowing yet, not very far away.  They are Black Copper Marans.  (Coincidentally, our last rooster was a Marans.)  They are integrating into the coop and should work out fine.  I hope they turn out to have as nice a temperament as our last rooster.  He was smart enough to never challenge people.