Beaver Mitts (Part Five)

The next two pieces to sew together are the piece you just finished and the only other piece left!  Funny how that works, hm?   You sew them similarly to how you did the thumb on the first piece.  Start at each side and steadily work your way up both sides.  This takes a considerable amount of time.  I believe that goldfish and champagne are necessities to this process.

Clearly champagne and goldfish are key.

Work your way up both sides to the top near where the middle finger sits in the glove.  This pattern involves very minimal gathering.  IF gathering does occur the gathering should be done with the beaver hide.  If there is excess leather you get the joy of ripping and trimming down the leather.  Fun stuff, hm?  You betcha!

The end is in sight.  Oh yeah.  Then you get to repeat the whole process.

Things that make me go awwww....

Oh holy crap this guy just makes me all gooey inside.  Them eyes!

Why yes little cub.  I'll high five you.

Nothing smells better than new puppy.

Amanda, if you read this.  You should do this to your little doggies.  Mini hot tub!

I otter have known better.  Bwah!

Steak. Done right.

After the photo shoot on Tuesday I needed some mad sustenance.  So after my brother dropped me off I bundled up and headed off on a mission.  I ate a dozen oysters (have I mentioned that I'm a glutton?) but that just wasn't enough to satisfy my little hunger monster.  So I went to crush and ordered their rib eye on special and a glass of wine.  Naturally one glass of wine lead to two and then to celebrate me finishing my glorious delicious steak of course I had to have a glass of champagne (told you, glutton).  It was decadent.

Pretty blue lights in the city park on the way to Crush.

Crush is losing Johnny to San Francisco.  So tragic.  He's such a staple at Crush.  He always knows what kind of sparkling yumminess to give me and he tells me about books to read.  It's very sad to see him go.  Tuesday was the last night that I will ever get to see him there.  I asked for something sparkling and he told me to read English Passengers written by Kneale.

Yes.  I say yes to you.

AvaKate Overload

 

This little angel came into our lives November 2, 2012 at 8:13 am.  She's the most beautiful little girl that I've ever seen in my entire life.  I adore her, even though all she does is eat, sleep and poop.  She's perfection.

Blurry pictures, it's not just your eyes.

Turns out that babies get ankle monitors just like prisoners!  I had no idea.  I'd never seen such a new baby before in my life.  She is so super tiny.  Her weight at birth was 7 lbs and 4.8 oz.  I got to hold her when she was two days old.  Two days!  That's such a brand new person with out any bad feelings in the world at all.  I wanna look at the work from the perspective of a 2 day old.  Everyone loves you and thinks you're the best person in the entire world.

This is my big brother with his little lady.

She sleeps a lot.

I didn't get to see her on day 3 of her life.  But I got to hang out for an extended period of time on day 4.  One of my brother's girlfriend's friends (mouthful) bought her a sitting for a photo shoot.  They schedule it for today and I was a lucky Panda because my brother came and picked me up from the hotel so I could be there.  I got to hold her again and give her little auntie kisses.  I'm really excited for the pictures to be edited and to be able to get some.  The photographer was really sweet and super nice.  And she seemed like she had super reasonable prices.  Here's a link to her fb page.

Here's one of the poses.  ADORABLE.

I had to take of picture of this.  Meet Miss Pink Bear that came with the flowers we sent.  :)

I babysat for five whole minutes by myself.  This is proof.

Any chance I get I run away from the hotel to just be around this little soul.  I'm entranced by her presence.  Brother and his girlfriend were at the mall so I skipped out on the last half of an evening session to run and hang out with them for the half an hour that they were there.  Even that was magical.

She has a frog binky.  My mom would be so proud.

Muskrat Trapping

These pictures are from last year.  We were only able to trap muskrats for a week or two because it got really cold and then decided to dump snow on us when we started setting muskrat traps.  The weather really worked against us last year.  I'm hoping it cooperates a bit more with us this year.

This is where a muskrat pushes up foliage to make a little lunching and munching pad.

You can see them on the top of lakes.  Muskrats push up stuff from the lake and make a little mound.  When you chop the top of the little mound off you can reach down and feel a little shelf where they come up to eat.  That's where you set the teeny foot trap to catch them.

Chop the top of the house off.

Put the trap in and secure it to a cross piece stick with wire.

Put the chopped piece back on the hole, pour a cup of water over it and then pack it with snow.  Super fast and easy.  And it's just as easy to check the trap.  Chop of the top and carefully pull up the trap to see if there's a muskrat caught.

Chop it up again to 

Got him!

They're such a soft fur.  They're really easy to skin.  What a fun little creature to trap!

Beaver Mitts (Part Four)

In this photo you can see the two types of stitching that I use.  You can also see the welting between the fur and the leather.  I really love skin sewing.  I think I like it even more than beading!  Who knew?

In this photo you can see me working my way up the sides of the thumb.  I always attempt to guess the length of the welting by using one piece.  Sometimes I'm right on other times I end up having to cut it, when you're guessing, don't underestimate.  Overestimating is the way to go.  That way you don't end up with little pieces of welting.

Mittens are awesome to sew because you sew with the fur side in.  Much easier than parka sewing which is best done fur side out (it's warmer).  I have yet to attempt a parka but I'm thinking a bigger skin sewing project might be fun.

This is what happens when you stay up too late drinking wine and skin sewing.  I have no other excuses.

The glories of food

All pictures (and gif) are from my good old time wasting website.  The internet is such a time suck.  I don't even want to know how many hours I've spent online, let alone on facebook.  I don't have the internet at home and I think I'm going to keep it that way.  I also don't have cable or satellite at home.  I have a tv and dvd player and I think that's sufficient.  I tend to get sucked into the internet and really bad television.  This is a preventative move on my part so I at least attempt to spend more time crafting, reading, and running.  I haven't run in over two weeks and it makes me sad.  Traveling and winter always derail me from running.  I'm not quite sure how to fix that.

This.  This is just.  Wow.

I don't even like hot dogs and this makes me want to eat hot dogs.

Best avocado ever.  And lets be honest.  Avocados are amazing.

I really would like to take the time to make these.  I really would.  Maybe my 30th birthday would warrant the time it would take.

Freaking adorable.  I want these in a tank swimming around looking awesome.