Thrifted Goodness and a Sad Quilt

I went to the thrift store today while Aaron was at physical therapy and I came home with some great things.  Our thrift store is very iffy--sometimes I get great stuff and other times it's a wasteland.  I found this fabulous teacup on my second pass down the dishes area, and the crocheted doilies were hanging clipped together near some place mats.  The doilies are very finely done.  Can you imagine the time someone put into them?

 

I found this quilt, too.  It made me so sad that someone took this beautiful quilt that this lady lovingly made for a family member and donated it to the thrift store.  I wonder why?  So many hours and such beautiful colors...it was made in 2007 and was signed by the original quilter.  It will have a good home with me.  I'll appreciate every stitch.

Regency-Inspired

Full View of Regency-Style Dress, a photo by elizabeth's*whimsies on Flickr.

Emma Leigh Addison is wearing a Regency-inspired dress that I finally finished last night. It's made in white-on-white cotton print and there are little matching pantalets beneath. The pattern was modified from a pattern in Storybook Clothes for Dolls by Londie Phillips. I made the neckline deeper and the waist higher. I hand-embroidered a little line of rosebuds along the hem, the bodice and the pantalet cuff.

Chick Sculpture

Chick sculpture, a photo by elizabeth's*whimsies on Flickr.

I had Robin Andreae make me this needle-felted chick sculpture. The chick lives in my craft room and makes me giggle!  Robin is a talented artist and has an array of great and unique animal sculptures available on ebay.  I love her work!

Zoe in Spring Floral

Zoe loves her teddy a photo by elizabeth's*whimsies on Flickr.

As the winter lingers and lingers and lingers here (it's snowing outside AGAIN), I wanted to see something spring-like. I ordered some new calico from Fabric.com and made up this little frock for Zoe. I crocheted the hat and ran a single strip of unfinished fabric through it for a bow. This isn't the best of photos and in fact, I will probably be re-shooting it eventually (I don't like the lighting) but I wanted to share the picture anyway.  If you click on the photo and go to flickr, there are a few other views of the dress.

We had some chicken excitement here this past week. I went out on Thursday afternoon to check on the ladies and noticed some odd holes dug into the bedding in their coop. I thought it must have been a chipmunk or something looking for seeds, but when Aaron went back out about 45 minutes later to check on them, there was an opossum in their coop! He was young and sluggish. Aaron used a stick to shoo him out, but the ladies were so terrified! Aaron had to dump a whole scoop of scratch onto the floor to get them back into the coop. They went to bed that night, nervous, while the 'possum dug around under their coop. I could hear him scratching when I checked on them around 9. I went back out at 11:30 (not much sleep for me that night!) and he had pushed open the run door where the hinge is loose because of all the ice buildup and gotten into the run and was eating up their feed! I yelled at him so loud that the dog across the marsh started barking. He ran, and I haven't seen him since, although we have had a Havahart trap baited out there for two days. Hopefully we catch the little bugger soon. Don't worry, I won't kill him, just move him to a safer area of our land, OUTSIDE our chickens' fence.

Just for fun, here's either Rhoda or Tildy (Matilda) when she was a baby.  It was before I banded them, so I don't know which one of them it is, but isn't she cute?!  Prudy was trying to sit on my lap today when went outside to do the morning chores.   She wants chicken hugs!  I want the snow to melt so the ladies can go play in their yard!