Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Free Reading Offer

I'm offering a free reading tonight! Comment with a general topic/question and I'll pick a winner tonight.   via

Sunday, May 01, 2011

Misery.

We've had to find Hunter a new home and everyone here is miserable. After waiting years to bring home a new family member and getting used to his romping about, we're gutted. It's far too quiet in the house today.

Why in the world would we give up such a gorgeous fellow?


Two acres. A boy to play with. Constant supervision. What could possibly go wrong? Two words, Black Locusts. Our property is dotted with these big Gothic looking trees and Hunter was forever picking up the twigs and bits of bark and eating them. The thing is, they're poisonous. We'd manage to trade the twigs for treats, or pull them out of his mouth but he'd still manage to swallow them. We quickly became concerned that our home was hazardous for the little thing. I couldn't live with myself if living here made him sick. So the very hard decision was made that perhaps we were not the perfect family for Hunter. I wish we were.

What makes it even harder was that Hunter was starting to get the hang of playing nicely with D over the past few days. The two were really starting to hit it off. Saying goodbye has been especially hard on the littlest Knickertwist. D was a very brave kidlet and said his "Goodbyes" and agreed that Hunter going to a safe home was the best thing we could do for him.

What a horrible lesson to learn at 8... that sometimes the very best thing to do feels like the absolute worst and sometimes it even breaks your heart :(

We've told his new family that if for any reason things don't work out he's to come directly back to us. I really hope he's happy and safe but part of me (the very selfish part) hopes he's a holy terror and they call tomorrow to bring him back.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Puppy Posts

You'll have to excuse the rash of puppy posts... I'm sure there will be a few as we settle in.

Our first days with Hunter have been pretty good. He's really bright and is picking up the clicker training well. He can sit like a pro, and we're working on "lay down", "stay" and "high 5". Yesterday he claimed an old fuzzy child chair as his bed and we placed it in his den. He surprised us all at 8:30 when he went in and snuggled down for the night. The whole night!

It hasn't all been sunshine and roses though. Hunter thinks that D is a big playmate and has been really nippy with him. D is completely freaked out. This is not what he thought puppy parenting was about. We're working hard to correct the mouthing and nipping. We're also tell D that Hunter likes him and is trying to play. We've explained that it's exactly like how he wrestles with me and often plays too rough. We're trying to get him to assert himself as a 'boss'. Poor kid, he isn't used to dogs that jump or sharp little puppy teeth. It's difficult because he's becoming more and more afraid of those tiny sharp milk teeth.

We'll work though it.

80% of the time he's just a big ol' tired pup.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Welcome a new Knickertwist!

We've been looking to add to our little family for a while now and today we welcomed a furry friend into our home. Meet Hunter, a 13 week old bundle of puppy trouble :)


Isn't he an absolute cutie-pie? He's had quite the day today and is currently fast asleep in his new 'den'. I'm sure we'll have loads of grand adventures together :)

Thursday, April 07, 2011

The next wee house

I've been working on another little house in the wee hours of the night. I'm moving towards a sort of witchy gothic playhouse. She looks a bit of a mess at the mo' but here's a peek anyway...



You can see that there's quite a way to go with this one. The roof isn't done at all but I've got something a little different in mind for this one but I have no idea if it will work :P I suppose that the experimentation is half the fun!

Wednesday, April 06, 2011

Snobbery, Wrestling and Needlecraft

Long ago I wrote a thesis on snobbery (doesn't it look fancy?). The basic gist was that snobbery is usually the result of ignorance and the need/desire to feel superior to others. Anti-snobbery on the other hand is often expressed by those who have an understanding, appreciation and knowledge of the subject matter. My thesis dealt specifically with the wine world but these snobby rules can be applied to other topics... like wrestling for example.

Chris Jericho is on Dancing with the Stars this season. I adore Chris Jericho. He's really funny. He's charismatic. He's from Winnipeg. If you haven't heard of Chris before you're probably not a professional wresting fan. He's the best in the world at what he does! He's the man of 1004 holds! He'll save us all! Y2J!

Chris' appearance on DwtS has spurred an awful lot of snobby comments about wrestling and wrestlers. The depth of hatred some people feel toward this form of entertainment (we all know it's entertainment right?) is both laughable and disturbing. Anyway, in an attempt to combat the negativity I've decided to profess my love for those men in tights through craft. :P

When I was a wee gal (in the days of the very first Wrestlemania) I was a big wrestling fan. I'm not a hard core follower now, I only catch a bit of it here and there, but I do find myself quickly sucked in. The crazy story lines, the good guys and baddest baddies, the costumes, faux fur, glitter, explosions, muscles and high flying action to boot... really, its the perfect source of crafting inspiration!

So I've spent the last week or so stitching up some of my favourite old time wrestlers...

Andre the Giant
"Macho Man" Randy Savage
Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka
Sgt. Slaughter

And unframed and wrinkly...

Iron Sheik

Big Show - Okay he's not an old timer... sue me *lol

Stitching these guys has been a ton of fun. These are the first 'real' stitchy projects I've worked on and I'm sure I'll be doing more. Besides, I've got to get an homage to Jericho in somewhere (he did inspire this set of stitchery after all) ... and then there's Undertaker, he'd be fun to do... and maybe Kane... and ... oh, you get the idea :)

Sunday, April 03, 2011

Faerie Houses version 3.1

Ok. This isn't the project I was hinting about last week but I finished this lot up today so I figured I'd share. They are actually the biggest of the lot I've done measuring around 5" tall.





I've given this lot wee wooden doors. They do need some handles though :)