Flowers and Foliage on Friday

Hi everyone! The rain finally let up long enough for me to get out and take pictures of all the flowers around the yard. Many of our shrubs are in bloom right now so let me take you on a trip around the yard. Since this is heavy with pictures I will keep the dialog to a minimum so sit back and enjoy.

North Side of Yard

Rugosa Rose

Miss Kim Korean Lilac

North East Corner of Yard

Deutzia blooms

Pink Rhododendron

White Rhododendron

Large Variegated Weigela in Bloom

A variety of hosta

Small Variegated Weigela

 

Therese Bugnet Rose

Perennial Geranium

Columbine – Aquilegia

The fuzz you see on the columbine is from the cotton wood trees that are shedding their seeds right now.

I hope you enjoyed this look around our yard. If the weather cooperated there will be more to come next week.

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It’s Sneak Peek Day at the Pet Blogger Mall!

Are you ready to shop ’til you drop?

 

Well today’s the day to get your

 

 

at the Pet Blogger Mall.

 

For today only you have a chance to see what all the excitement is about. All you need to get into the mall is our secret code for the day. What is the secret code you ask? When you click on the PBM Shop you will be asked to enter a password. The password for today is:

open1day

I bet you are wondering what you will find in the mall. There are items for your dog, your cat and you! There are books to read, toys to play with, and lots of custom items too. So what are you waiting for? Hop on over to the PBM Shops and start window or shop shopping!

Shoppers, we are hoping that you will thoroughly test out the PBM shopping experience – it’s navigational friendliness, item and shop rate and review systems (note – this is a test day so all ratings and reviews will be cleared prior to the Grand Opening), helpful content, etc. Please feel free to leave us your thoughts through our Suggestion Form, Contact Form, post comments, etc. We are looking forward to hearing from you!

Thank you for participating in Sneak Peek Shopper Day!

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Black & White Sunday – Flowers & Foliage

 

Deciduous Azalea Flowers

Perennial Geranium

Hosta Leaves

Snowball Viburnum

Wild Strawberry

Double File Viburnum & Rock

We are participating in the Black & White Sunday blog hop.

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Crochet Shawl for Mother’s Day

When your parents reach a certain age it becomes more difficult to find gift items for their special occasions. I don’t really like to give money, but sometimes that is what works best. If I can, lately I will try to make something unique for them  like I did last year for mother’s day and my dad’s birthday. Since I had already done the machine embroidery thing I decided that this year for Mother’s Day I would use my new hooking (crochet) skills to create something special for my mom.

I’ve been following a few crocheters blogs and one of them, Teresa Kasner, made a beautiful shawl that looked like one I might be able to tackle. The pattern is available on Ravelry for a small fee so you couldn’t see the pattern before purchasing it. I like to see a pattern before I download it (many are free) so I can see if I think it is one I could manage. This one had a fairly low difficulty rating so I took the plunge and purchased the “Ruby” pattern by Anastasia Roberts.

I decided to use the same yarn that Teresa used in her shawl so I took a trip to Joann’s to see what they had. The yarn is a sock weight from Deborah Norville called Serenity Garden. As soon as I saw the hibiscus color I knew that was the one for mom. Red is the most popular color she wears. I also liked this yarn because it is soft, made of Dralon Microfiber and is fairly light weight.

 

I wanted to make sure the shawl was big enough so she could really wrap herself in it. The pattern starts at the top edge and you keep adding rows that get bigger and bigger. The nice thing is you can make as many sets of those rows as you need for the desired size.

 

The shawl finishes off with a more lace like pattern.

 

This section was a bit challenging and I also determined that the pattern wasn’t written correctly on one of the rows, but I was able to make an adjustment that worked perfectly.

 

I blocked the shawl on our spare queen sized bed and you can see that one side is as long as the bed is wide. I probably could have done without a few of those rows, but I wasn’t sure how large the lace border would turn out. I figured that more was better in this case.

 

The day I gave my mom the shawl she of course was wearing an outfit that the shawl worked perfectly with. I think you can tell that not only was she surprised, but very happy with the finished product.

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Wordless Wednesday – Stop Action Wrestling

Millie & Walter sure do enjoy wrestling.

If you can’t see the video you can go here to view it.

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Coming Soon – The Pet Blogger Mall!

Have you heard all about the upcoming Pet Blogger Mall? Ever been surfing all over the internet looking for just that perfect gift but couldn’t find what you were looking for? Do you like to support fellow pet bloggers? Well we have the answer for you. The Pet Blogger Mall will be opening soon and will be a gateway to a wide variety of items created by your fellow bloggers.

The Pet Blogger Mall was founded by several pet bloggers to create the perfect option for online shopping: an all encompassing outlet showcasing the creative works offered for sale by pet bloggers worldwide. With so many retail options out there, it is a way of supporting and promoting the work of the pet blogging community.

Keep up to date with new developments at the Pet Blogger Mall by following the PBM Blog. If you become an official follower you can also win a fabulous prize courtesy of the Crabby Girls.

But wait there’s more! Stay tuned for a Sneak Peek Shopper Day!

The shops are beginning to be set up in the Mall and we need You to test out our Shopping System.  After the first five Shops are ready to go we’re going to Open the Doors for ONE DAY ONLY.

You can Window Shop or You can Shop Shop – it’s up to you.

– YOU WILL NEED A SECRET CODE TO GET IN –

PBM will be including the SECRET CODE on the Sneak Peek Shopper Day post – you’ll only be able to use it for One Day and then it will no longer work. So keep an eye on the Mall – you won’t want to miss the Day of Sneak Peek Shopping Fun!

One of the featured shops available on the Sneak Peek Shopper Day will be my Etsy shop Cindy’s Thread Craft where you can find a variety of pet toys and bags that can be custom designed just for you.

Weimaraner Clutch in Faux Suede

Make sure you don’t miss out all the new developments at the Pet Blogger Mall by becoming a follower of the PBM Blog and you might just win a prize too!

 

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Granny Squares…Lots of Granny Squares!

It’s been almost a year since Lynne posted her first tutorial for the Blogville Ladies Crochet Society and I took my first steps into learning crochet. I had wanted to learn how to crochet ever since I saw the amazing things she made and exchanged with her friend Melissa and was thrilled when she offered to create some tutorials. We started with dishcloths and potholders, moved on to  amigurumi pebbles and finished with learning how to make granny squares.

I never posted about the granny squares because I was making them as gifts and didn’t want to spoil the surprise but now that they have been given away I can tell you all about them. When I first started making the granny squares I didn’t know what  I was going to use them for. At the same time I was working on the Blue Moon Magic Raffle Quilt for the Genesee Valley Quilt Club. I’m the kind of person that likes to show my appreciation for people that help me on a project so I decided to put those two things together so to speak. There were about 70 ladies all totaled that helped create the raffle quilt and I decided to make a pincushion for each of them.

 

My mom helped by sewing and stuffing all the little pillows. We used one of the left over fabrics from the quilt that also complimented the yarn I was using for the granny squares. I used the cotton yarn I had also used to make some wash clothes I sent to the Warmth for Warriors project. There are 5 different colors of yarn and I was able to make it so no two cushions were alike (sort of like snow flakes). I loved how they turned out.

 

Here is a close up of a few of them. I had to improvise what to do for the back of the cushion and it took a couple of tries to get the size just right.

 

I ended up doing 7 rows of double crochet (15 stitches long). To join the front and back I used single crochet around the edge. I’m happy to say that the ladies who received them were surprised and happy with their unique gifts.

After making 70 granny squares I’m pretty sure that I can now make one in my sleep. Towards the end it started to seem a bit tedious, but it felt good to get them done. Thanks again to Lynne for turning me into a hooker. I really enjoy having this portable hobby.

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Millie’s Musings – Surprise Pressies!

Hi everyone it’s Millie here! I have to tell you about an amazing surprise we all got last week. Mom said she wasn’t expecting any packages so when the mailman drove up the driveway and dropped something off we had no idea what it was.

 

It was addressed to Walter and I and if you don’t recognize the last name on the return address you wouldn’t know that it was a pressie package from the Dachsies With Moxie! We couldn’t wait for mom to get that box open.

 

Everything was well wrapped so I had to do some digging to get at the pressies. With some help from mom all was revealed.

 

There were three great toys in there!  A giant tennis ball, a green dog with extra rope on the side of his head and a cool red and blue toy that looked like it was the same shape as a dachshund! The big envelope was some embroidery stuff for mom {boring!}. There was also this great letter from our cousins Tasha, Chip and Snoopy.

 

The timing of the pressies couldn’t be better since my birthday was only a few days away. I decided that since the note said it was to welcome us to the family that I should probably share them with Walter too.

 

We took them up to the bedroom for a complete inspection and test drive.

 

Walter really liked the green one…

 

and I liked the red one and the ball. Mom and dad won’t let us play with any stuffed toys without supervision since we have a tendency to rip them apart, but the ball is one of our permanent outdoor toys. Something about it being too bouncy for inside the house and knocking things over. We have a great time chasing the ball and playing keep away with it and I make sure to tell mom or dad to get out the stuffies so we can play with them often.

I just want to say a great big THANK YOU to the Dachsies With Moxie for this fantastic surprise. If you don’t already know them you should hop over to their blog and say hello.

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