Cluck Cluck

Looks like I found a use for the chicken print fabric:

Its a make-up bag, btw. Actually, use it for whatever, but I'm calling it a make up bag! Whether I'm keeping it for myself or it becomes a gift for someone remains to be seen.

Thanks for the lovely comments about Rosie. I'm very pleased to say it seems to have been a one off and the over-night bullying antics have calmed down. They're still not 100% settled with each other but they are much better. The newbies are getting tamer too, in the last 2-3 days they've started waddling over to me when I call them, which is lovely to see!

Have a great weekend!

Weekend Makes

Hope you've all had a good weekend? Its a bit quiet out in blogland so I'm guessing you're all getting ready for those Christmas fairs! I finally found some time to do some making myself this weekend:

So pleased with this - it took me ages to get it straight in my head about how the zip needed to be done!

Its been an eventful few days at Chookingham Palace. We finally put all 11 chooks in the same hut over night on Saturday and when we let them out yesterday poor Rosie was covered in blood around her comb and down her neck where she'd been pecked.

So early yesterday morning, my boyf and I were in the garden with our first aid kit, patching her up. Bless her, she does look a state as she's got purple spray on her comb (purple spray is an antiseptic and the colour is to reduce the redness so its not so visible to the other chooks and hopefully stop them pecking), dried blood on her feathers (which seems impossible to get off, despite trying) and of course, she's moulting. This morning, her comb is fine but she has been slow on her feet because she's had an egg stuck, which is often due to stress. Its very upsetting to see, but they have to establish who's top girl and that takes a few days. In the meantime, Rosie is getting lots of fuss and I'm keeping a close eye on her.

Have a great week!

Meerkat

My boyfriend is obssessed with the "Compare the Meerkat" adverts. Me? Not so much, probably after having him recite it each time its on to me. So when I saw this I knew he'd love it:

Various styles of meerkats available from Nifty Knits on Folksy. She's a very friendly seller and the parcel arrived well wrapped and rather quickly too. (Photo from Nifty Knits)

Autumn's arrived

I'm feeling in need of sunshine. Not necessarily a holiday, but to feel a bit of warmth on my face would be lovely. I'm definitely suffering with the winter blues this year (yes, they've arrived early :) ). Autumn has arrived here with a vengence.

At least half of the chooks are moulting and looking rather sorry for themselves, especially in the torrential rain over the weekend, which left them looking like they'd been swimming.

I had a busy weekend in London where I met my mum. Its not somewhere I visit very often and whilst its a nice change once in a while, I'm glad it doesn't happen often! We didn't go with anything planned and ended up spending most of the day around Covent Garden. Not something I usually do but mum loves it there so it kept her happy! I was hoping to make it to the Cath Kidston store but didn't - infact, you'll be surprised to hear that I didn't buy anything (other than a cuppa!). That was unintentional but you know how it is, you go out with a view to spending and then don't find anything!

Hope you all had a great weekend.

Busy Busy!

Although not craft related busyness unfortunately!

My boyf’s auntie has been in the UK for a few weeks (she lives in St. Lucia) and yesterday we had to take her to the airport. Up at 3am and in Gatwick at 7am! My boyf had already done the trip on Tuesday (Tuesday was a bad day, I'm not a nice person on 4 hours sleep!) but she had forgotten her handbag and passport so he had to bring her home again. Anyway, it was quite nice as although we’ve met a couple of times, we’ve never had a proper conversation. All I knew about her was she was an artist!

I've been buying a bit of fabric recently. I’m really loving patchwork at the moment so I’ve brought some patchwork pieces from eBay. Two ways of looking at this – it is a bit lazy getting someone to have done the hard work and cut everything out, but on the plus side you get a variety of different fabrics!

The upside of being up at 3am was my boyf had promised to take me to Ikea! I was very restrained and brought a small amount of fabric and a few other bits and bobs, including a play tent for our cats (yes, I know. I'm embarrassed admitting it) which was missing all of the sticks to hold it up with, quite annoying as we're so far away from the store.

Now that we're facing the long nights, I'm hoping to be able to fit some more crafting in here and there.

Thanks for all the lovely comments regarding our new girls! They seem to be settling in well and this weekend, after keeping them separate from our existing girls, we penned them all in to a large part of the garden. All went well, although one of the rocks is trying to make her mark and show them she's top of the flock. A few more days and hopefully they'll be fine and then its just getting them all in the same hut!

PS - As I was in the middle of writing this, the poppy lady came round and commented on how lovely the chickens were and that she was thinking of getting some. Needless to say I took the opportunity to offer her a box of eggs - we're swamped under with them at the moment, and that's just with 5 laying! The new girls aren't quite ready to lay yet!