Monday, November 23, 2009

I hate fleas .....

with a passion.  Unfortunately, my dogs have come down with them.  It's been 10 years since I had to battle this plague and, quite frankly, I'm beat!  I have been vaccuuming, bathing dogs, washing, bleaching and drying the devil out of the dog's bedding and whatever else will fit into the clothes washer.  The devil has left the building but the fleas remain.  --Sigh--  I finally had to break down and get one of those nasty insecticide things to put on each of my pups (except the pregnant one of course).  This seems to be working but I'm beginning to suspect the fleas are living in my yard and coming in with the dogs.  I'm hoping it freezes soon so I don't have to spray the yard.   --Heavy Sigh--

And speaking of the yard, it was such a lovely day Sunday that I spent some of it outdoors (fleas notwithstanding) working in my garden.  Mainly, I spread the leaves out in my garden.  Fallen leaves are wonderful things.  Garden mulch extraordinaire.  You just put them where ever you want and  -- POOF! -- like magic -- they will turn into black gold.  Call me crazy but I'm thinking of planting more trees in my back yard to get more leaves for my garden.

All that aside, I did manage to stitch a  couple little fall projects this past week .... ones that I have been wanting to do for some time.  And being in an autumnal kind of mood, I decided to put everything else aside to finish them.


This first one I just LOVE.  One of my favorite things about the Fall holidays is Pumpkin Pie -- yum -- yummy!  This is a pattern from the Cross-Eyed Cricket.   Isn't it scrumptious?  It's on white congress cloth that I painted with acrylic paint to a nice orange/brownish color.  Using mostly DMC threads, I changed most of the cross stitches to other stitches.   I'm thinking I'll either put it in a little frame or make an ornament out of it.

I'm happy with it .....  It makes me smile.




This second one is from the Plum Street Samplers.  It's a nice little turkey sampler.  The oringinal pattern has a border around it but I opted to not stitch it.  This one is stitched on a misc. piece of 28 ct overdyed  evenweave I had from a previous project.  It is all DMC threads and, again, I changed some of the cross stitches to something else.

I just love this turkey.  He is way cool.  I plan to turn him into a little wall or door knob hanging.




Even though I'm still in a Fall stitching mood, I'm going to switch to some Christmas stitching this week .....   presents don't stitch themselves and I recently found out I need one more.  I best be crackin'!


Happy Thanksgiving! 


(You can probably guess what I'll be eating this holiday)

3 comments:

  1. yuck about the fleas. I hope you get it resolved REAL SOON!!!!! We still have our 'odor' here. He goes to the groomer on Wed. Hope she doesn't kick him out!!!!!
    Your finishes look great!!!!!

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  2. Thanks Shari -- good luck at the groomer's

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  3. I like to read through new blogs but I usually don't comment on old posts because I feel slightly like a stalker, but fleas are a battle! I have a Minnie Aussie who is allergic to 99% of flea products on the market, including the items for home and outside. If I give her anything but Frontline it acts as a neurotoxin on her and she starts foaming at the mouth, her eyes twitch and she stumbles! 2 $400 dollar trips to the emergency vet later I have learned my lesson for good and now try to stay as chemical free as possible. I had them so bad at my last house that we ended up having to bathe the 3 cats with flea shampoo, flea bomb the house and then clean the whole thing top to bottm to get the chemical residue off so Rylee could come home. What I've started doing is setting up flea traps near the animals bedding. They look like heat lamps with sticky pads under them. You can see the little beggers stuck to the thing. That is one small victory in the war on fleas! Also someone suggested to me to liberaly coat the bedding in salt. It dries out their bodies or something and causes them to die. I haven't had to try that yet but it might work for carpeting.

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