Where does the time go?

I thought I had posted earlier in the week, but it seems I was wrong.  (It's possible I dreamed it...)

Here's the little rascal that has sucked up so much of my time lately -

Her name is Chuckles, and she's the sole survivor of a litter of fifteen.  This photo is the best I could get of her - it's blurry because she Never. Stops. Moving.   (She's playing with a ball here, which is her second favorite thing to do.  Eating is her very favorite thing, of course.)

The only sewing I've managed to squeeze in is finishing the back for the Twinkle quilt.  I laid it out on the big dining table to get it ready to baste.

I had a bunch of triangles left over, so I've used them to piece a strip for the back.  This was partly for interest, and partly so I wouldn't have to drive myself crazy piecing short narrow bits together to make the backing wide enough.   (I had two 3.5 yard cuts of this pretty striped fabric, which I got long before the top was finished, thinking it would be plenty.  Optimism continually bites me on the butt.)

I had the back laid out on the table and was smoothing it and taping it down, when it dawned on me that it should be upside down.
Doh!
Finally, after much wrangling and starting over (because I realized that I was going to have to lay it out with the width of the quilt running the long way on the table because ginormous table isn't ginormous enough for ginormous quilt), I started pinning.

Hopefully the quilting can commence in the next couple of days.  Yay!


Linking with Quilting is More Fun than Housework, for Oh Scrap!  Come join the fun!

Oink!

So, I finally untied that pretty bow on my fabric stack from yesterday.
Most of what I got was for stash and for Allietare.

But some was for a particular project I had in mind.  Pigs!

Way back in August, I made an experimental block that I set aside for a future project.
Welcome to the future!
A little sewing, 

a little quilting,

and a little more sewing.
The last scrap of that green background fabric went into making these pockets.

 And tada!

Front, back,

and the inside view.

My Wicked Good Stepmother's* birthday is Tuesday.  She needed a bag for important porky business.
I'm quite taken with it myself.  I hope she likes it.


* A Vermontism:  When something is especially good, it's said to be 'wicked good'.  My stepmother is wicked good.  8)

Psst: Real Pigs Aren't Pink

The other day I posted a picture of a test block I made

and mentioned that I wasn't spending as much time sewing as planned.
Here's a reason for both -

 

This little guy is the sole survivor of a litter from a Very Bad Mama. 

Most mama pigs settle right down to the family thing.  "Look at my babies!  My babies are the best babies!  Time for breakfast, babies!  And then naptime and then second breakfast."  This particular mama pig was more "What are these THINGS and why do they keep bothering me?"
So we finally had to give up on her,and step in and try to rescue them, but for most it was already too late. 
This little guy managed to make it and is now thriving.  He's a week old and we've stopped holding our breath.
He's even gotten big and strong enough to leave his tub in the woodroom for an outing on the porch.
The first thing he did was climb up a step, much to my surprise.  The last little piglet we'd raised like this didn't figure out steps until he was a month old.

After a glance back down, he proceeded to go up all the steps and was headed for the driveway.  This is a pretty bold move for someone who's only half the size of a sack of sugar.
I scrambled and grabbed him before he could get himself headed for town (I'm sure that was his plan) and blocked the steps so he couldn't pull that again.
Here's a photo taken just before he untied my shoe.  (An ever-popular pastime for piglets.)

The day before, I'd tried to get him interested in tussling  since he's now old enough to start that pastime as well.  (There's a discussion of tussling here)  But, nope, I'd guessed wrong.   His reaction had been "What are you doooooinnnng?!?  Stop thaaaaat..."  So I figured we'd try again at a later date.  Since he has no playmates, and pigs don't do well alone, I try to keep him engaged and socialized.
So I sat in the rocking chair with my Kindle while he explored the porch.  Pretty soon I felt a nudging at my foot.

I gently nudged back.

And he figured out tussling.  What fun!  He wore himself out sumo wrestling my foot and was ready for a good long nap when it was back to the tub.

So pigs.  Big interest in pigs around here.

But pigs aren't pink.

Up to our elbows in piglets!

Excuse me.  Who's up to their elbows in piglets?

Here are a few pictures of just a few of the piglets we've got on hand at the moment.  It's harder than you'd think to take pictures of piglets.  They're fast.  Very fast.  So most of my shots were either empty (because all the piglets had scattered) or just full of blurs (because even the 'sports' setting on my camera isn't quick enough to catch skedaddling piggies.) 

 Of course, they're also very very curious.  This one came over to see what I was doing.  Then he was pushed out of the way by these little dudes

who were also wondering.  Then they all went back to a productive afternoon of tussling, racing, and getting their faces dirty.

These are my favorites - I do love polka dot pigs:

Especially when they come in all different colors.
These little cuties are only a couple of days old, but are already tussling with each other, which is why the piggies in the center are blurry.  They plant their feet and try to push each other over with their noses and shoulders.  Sort of like sumo wrestling but on a very small scale.  If you listen closely, you can even hear them giggling...

Here's another version of polka dot pigs. Or, well, freckle-butts, actually.

They're exhausted from a hard day of pigging.  Though they'll be back up and at 'em in about 15 minutes or so.   Their batteries recharge amazingly fast.
Mama's nap might go on a bit longer, however.  With that crew to take care of, she needs her rest.

Here, Piggy, Piggy...

So I can now reveal the secret knit project, since it has been gifted to the happy recipient.
It's double-knitting again, since I seem to have been bitten hard by this particular technique. 

Behold, the Pig Hat:

A fully reversible earflap hat.  With pigs.

I designed it on the fly, since I had the wonderful idea for it way too late to actually finish it in time.  By starting with the earflaps, I was able to work out what my gauge was, and then do the calculations for the body of the hat from there.  The pigs are a re-work of some charts for a sock in the Socks, Socks, Socks book, altered from the 3 colors of the charts (meant for duplicate stitch) which I changed for 2 colors.  The stripes are just because I like stripes, and they make it easy to count rows.  I finished weaving in the last end after supper at the giftee's house, after making her hunt me up a yarn needle.  (Because I'd forgotten to bring one.  Preparedness is not my middle name...)

The recipient is my wonderful Wicked Good Stepmother - since she and my dad raise pigs, it seemed wildly appropriate.  I told her that with one side out, it shows Yorkshire pigs, and the other side is flashing Red Durocs. 

She was pretty pleased with the hat...

Have Hub, Will Travel

A quick visit to Radio Shack on the way home (my only nearby source for computer bits) put an end to my plug-unplug-plug-swear-unplug-swear-plug antics. Hurray for hubs!
And now we return to our regularly scheduled blithering...

So.
In early August, I made a trip with my youngest daughter to upstate NY to visit my dad. My oldest daughter, son-in-law, and grandkids drove up from Florida to be there at the same time. (And not-coincidentally, it was my birthday. A very happy birthday for me, to have both my daughters with me at the same time!)
Daughter-the-younger and I arrived the day before the rest of the crew, so we had a chance to settle in and check out all the cool critters.
There were freshly sheared alpacas

and some spiffy new Barred Rock pullets.

And piggies! These are either a week old, or two weeks old. (I got confused after a certain point. There were pigs everywhere - multiple litters in multiple colors in multiple barns.
My favorites are the polka-dotted ones...

On Sunday, while we were waiting for Older daughter and Co to arrive, we had some big excitement. Dad has cameras on several of the pens, in order to keep track of what's going on out in the barns. One of the young sows (who wasn't really due for another couple of days) was in labor and had already had two piglets. Which she was chasing and trying to bite. Naturally I grabbed my camera and headed out to the barn with the rest of the troops.
As a first time mother, she was irritable and confused. Here she was, hot and in pain, and suddenly there were these pesky things that were plaguing the hell out of her, snuffling and nuzzling and squeaking. We finally had to pull them from the pen, because she was too agitated to do anything but stomp around and try to boot piglets. Once they were gone, she settled back down and laid down again.

After about half an hour's wait, Piggie number 3 made an appearance.

Followed by Number 4.

By this time, she had her butt up close enough to the wall of the pen that I was afraid the babies were going to be born with concussions...
As each piglet was born, my WickedGoodStepmother would give it a chance to try to nurse, until mama pig got too agitated, then would rescue it and drop it into the bin we'd set up for the babies' protection.
These little squirmers are all looking for something - they don't know what it is, but they're sure they'll know it when they find it. They're sucking on each other's noses, tails, and ears, because Mother Nature had promised them that there'd be food. Gives a whole new layer to "Got Milk?", doesn't it?

Older Daughter & Crew arrived about that time. The grandkids were fascinated by the bin full of baby piggies.

The count mounted. Here we are at seven. I love the variety.

After about the 10th one, Mama just didn't give a shit anymore. So we pulled them out of the bin and returned them to her, where they proceeded to clumsily look for spigots.

This little guy finally figured it out.

And eventually, so did the rest of them. But by that time, my camera's batteries were out of juice...
*sigh*

What would be the point of a weekend off if you don't end up with critter pics?

After all the auto angst, it was a smooth trip there and back, with nothing whatsoever exploding. Yay! (If only it wasn't an 8 hour trip. Each way.)

And I promised pictures...

First up, piggies!
I've mentioned a few times that my dad raises pigs. A lot of pigs. (He told me his New Year's resolution this year is not to build another barn. Those of us who know him think this is totally hysterical.)
I tried to make friends with these little cuties, but they weren't having it. I couldn't even tempt them over with corn. Every time I moved, they'd scatter, then inch closer as long as I was perfectly still. Even so, they kept a strict distance between me and them. I was disappointed, since I really wanted to scritch them behind the ears.


Hard to believe that something so small grows up to be something so big...



Anyone who is currently breastfeeding might want to skip the next couple of pictures - they'll give you nightmares. Or maybe you'll want to look, and think about how happy you are that you're human and not swinish...

Yep, that's two layers of piglet goodness.

While I was trying to get closer for a better shot, one of the little piggies panicked and made a noise. Mama heaved herself up to see what was going on. The little ones vanished -

and hid behind her.

But they were way too curious to stay hidden for long.

All these little ones are about a week old. They're just at the point where they've started to run and jump and spin around dancing. I could have watched them all afternoon, but there were other critters to see...

My Wicked Good Stepmother has an alpaca collection. (She started with 2, then suddenly found herself with 6. She's not entirely sure how that happened. She's back down to 5 now, as one of her original ones passed away last fall, but who knows how many she'll have tomorrow.)



And you know me and the chicken pictures...
Here's part of Dad's motley crew -


As you can see, there's plenty of variety in that pen (and I only got about half of them in the picture.)


There's also some molting going on. Poor raggedy looking things...