My Continued Adventures With Pea Fowl

My eldest daughter raises pea fowl.  She has been working toward getting a specific color for a long time and finally got that one elusive bird this spring in Artemis.  

I hope I get this correct, she is a purple, black shoulder pied female pea hen. 

 PHEW!  

She was being picked on in the barn and got ill so daughter took her to the peacock vet 

(yes there is such a thing)

They fixed her up but while being treated she had to stay in the house.  

Now it is COLD in MI and Artemis has not been outside long enough to develop her winter feathers so she will be staying inside for the winter.  

As you can imagine this presents some issues, especially bathroom issues.  

So...mom and her diaper making skills to the rescue!  

This is not my first time either.

I have made them for Gizmo, Beep and Stan in the past.  

Gizmo and Beep have passed and Stan lives in the barn.  

I know she really misses Gizmo and Beep so I won't be surprised if she keeps Artemis in the house.  She cleaned out Beep's bedroom so things are trending toward that.  

She has not been able to make herself clean out that room since we lost Beep.  

You can read about that here if you are interested. 

 If you want to read about Gizmo you can do so here.  

There are many stories about them in addition to these if you search my blog. 

I digress.  

Last night she came over and brought Artemis.  

She is a beautiful bird and very well behaved (unlike Beep).  

She doesn't try to peck you in the eye or eat your shiny bits and bobs.  

She even knows her name!

So the mission last night was to make a new diaper.  

My daughter chose a Philip Jacobs print and I set to work.  

(pretty proud that I centered those swirls on both sides)

I had a pattern I made last time I made a diaper for Beep so used that as a guide.  

Each bird is particular, like we are, so each diaper must be made to fit that bird.  

I made the pouch part pretty easily with a few adjustments then we had to try it on her to make sure where all the straps would connect.  

Artemis was a trooper with the on again off again nonsense.

This is the finished diaper.  

A plastic bag gets placed in the pouch and the pouch covers the cloaca to catch the waste.  

We started using velcro and that was MUCH easier then the safety pins she used to use with Gizmo.

This is my daughter putting it on her.

You can see the back part here.

The pouch connects to the back as does the harness that goes over her head and around her chest.

The harness is sewn to the back part, while the pouch straps connect with Velcro.

Everything fit well and they were ready to head home.

Exciting times at my house last night!  

I am hoping to settle down and work on my baby quilt commitments tonight or at least this weekend.

Do you have any exciting plans for the weekend?

~XOP~

WIPs With Friends

As I said previously, I have been busy, busy, busy sewing but can't show much of it.  

I did make three more tea towels.  

Two of them are going in the mail to people I can't mention and 

one will be hand delivered on Christmas Eve.  

I may still need to make one more, I'm thinking about it.

We had our lab Christmas party and I found this amazing recipe online that I decided to make.  

It was a HUGE hit!  

I am going to make it for the family Christmas party on Christmas eve.  

It is a spinach dip Christmas tree!! 

 You use a roll of pizza dough to make it and a spinach dip recipe that is 

not the usual Knorr recipe and it is to die for! 

 I found the recipe on the It's Always Autumn blog and 

you can find it here if you need to make one too.  

Super easy and very yummy!

I thought I would show you the latest popular cat toy at my house.  

Cole loves to shred spongy things.  

First is his ball, then my kitchen sponge and now this noodle.  

He just goes to town on it.  

Odd little cat.  

Last night my daughter and her new house peacock, Stan came for a visit.  

I was elected to sew yet another peacock diaper!  

Yes, I really do get to sew ALL the things!! 

 This time DD picked out some fancy fabric for a diaper.  

So here is the beginning of diaper making.  

I had Beep's old one to use as a guide, but since Stan is younger and smaller I had to modify it.  

I drew a pattern from the old one.  

We had to do several "fittings" to make sure it fit correctly.

Eventually, this was the finished product.  

Stan is a snuggler.  If you have followed me for very long you may have seen the past 2 house peas.  Gizmo was the first and we lost him at about 10 months.  

Then came Beep.  

She was with us for almost 2 years before swallowing the needle thing and 

dying from complications of surgery.  

DD swore no more house peas but as you can see she could not resist Stan.  

He is happy in the house or in the pen (unlike Beep) but when in the house he needs a diaper.  

We actually think he may be slightly mentally impaired and may not have the best eyesight. 

 He really is quite sweet which you would never have said about Beep, or almost never, 

she was sweet to DD just not very many others.  

I was snapping this photo of Stan and his "mom" when my husband said, "hey, what about me? 

 I have someone that loves to snuggle with me too".  

Every time he sits in that chair, Finny decides that he needs to snuggle with his dad and hops right up, walks over his computer and expects hubby to put his arm in "the position" for him to snuggle into.  Usually he throws his head back and kisses his dad and wants to know he is ok 

then settles in for a nap.  

It is super cute.  

Except when Finn is snuggled up by me and 

Chris calls his name and he bolts over to be with his dad.  

These two!

Here is a photo of Mr Fancy Pants in his new diaper. 

So as you can see the fun never ends at my house.  Never mind that I am *trying* to get ready for Christmas!  

What are you working on?  Please link up with this page and share your fun.

I am also linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts.

Click on the linky tool to link up!

~XOP~

An InLinkz Link-up

WIPs With Friends

I decided to work on a few things I needed to tidy up.  

So I cleaned up my room and began to work on cutting out more of my Ocean Waves quilt.  

Then my daughter called and plans changed. 

 She wanted me to sew a peacock diaper for Beep. 

 That consumed all of my Saturday afternoon. 

 I had her bring the old one so I had a pattern and we made a few modifications.  

I forgot to take any process shots but here it is in all it's glory. 

 We added velcro so will see how that works out.  Hopefully Beep will not be able to undo that.

This is how it goes on the bird.

 Here is Beep modeling her new diaper.

Next up was to make some baked egg rolls.  It was my first attempt at this.  

I think they could be rolled a bit tighter, which I did as I made more. 

 Overall they turned out well and were only 3 Smart Points each! 

 Recipe is from the Skinny Kitchen website and you can find it here.

I put on my new Valentine's leggings and life was good!

I made the binding for the Hallowedding quilt this weekend too.  It's all black. 

I made a couple of oven mitts but I can't show them as they are a surprise for a friend

 and she reads my blog.  

TRUST me when I say they are adorable! 

 I just need to put the bias binding on the bottoms of them.  

I am going to attempt a Open Wide bag for the same friend. 

 The free tutorial is on Noodlehead's blog.  

If I can figure out how to make them I will show you what I end up with.  

OK so what are you working on?  Join up with the link or use the #WIPsWithFriends.

~XOP~

An InLinkz Link-up