Sweater to Purse

My second autumn craft this year involved taking a sweater and turning it into a purse.  I've got several sweaters stashed away for repurposing, but you could always go to a thrift store and find some cheap ones too.  Of course I saw this project on Pinterest and I've been wanting to make one for a long time.  I basically used this tutorial, but I changed my dimensions a bit and used strapping for the handles.  I also added pockets to my lining for my iPad, cell phone, chapstick, etc.  I considered this a trial run because I have another sweater that I really want to make into a purse.  I think it turned out pretty cute.  You can see my one big mistake- part of my lining is showing the wrong side of the fabric.  Oh well- at least you can't see it from the outside.  This is why I do practice runs :)  Next time I'll make the purse a little bit bigger so my stuff isn't so crowded and make the lining a bit smaller so it isn't so baggy inside.  I did break 2 sewing machine needles on this project due to the thickness of the layers, so if you make this be prepared with extra needles!
I am linking this up to a Pinterest challenge on one of my favorite blogs: Young House Love. 

Neighborhood Farm

When people find out that we live out in the country on ~11 acres, they often ask if we keep any animals on the land.  Our reply is usually something like, "No, but our neighbors have lots of animals, so we get to enjoy them without having to do any of the work."  So I thought it might be fun to share some pictures (and videos) of the animals we get to enjoy around our house.
First up, our neighbors to the west.  We have a field on this side of our property that is about 200 acres.  It mostly has cows, but also 4 llamas and 1-4 horses.  These are the only animals around that have babies that we get to enjoy.  

Llamas- very curious about everything

Cows on the move, a little camera shy

Cows at sunset

Our neighbor to the east has a dog named Pizza, but she also keeps sheep and a donkey part of the year.

1 ram and 10 ewes

Silly Donkey

"Got any carrots for me?"

 Titus especially loves chasing the sheep and making the donkey mad.  We started feeding the donkey grass and carrots this year, so he tolerates us much more.  He even joins us for our evening walks and lets us pet him occasionally :)  Check out these videos.
Here is donkey walking with us and Titus chasing the sheep.  Sorry, it's shaky.  It's hard to walk on a dirt road while filming :)

 

Here's proof that Donkey is starting to tolerate Titus.

 

This donkey will plow through the oak tress to walk with us.  Here's an up close shot for you, Shelly!

Our neighbors to the south are super sweet and have 2 horses: Freckles and Lady.  Freckles is so pretty but can get a little aggressive about her carrots.  Lady is over 30 years old and has trouble walking, but she loves a good neck rub if she is nearby. 

Freckles sticking out her tongue for the camera

Beautiful Freckles

Lady is a little hard to see here, but she is the brown horse behind Freckles.

Our neighbors to the north used to have goats and a donkey, but they moved away.  Josh once had to rescue one of their goats that was stuck in the fence, poor thing.  The new neighbors say they will probably put goats on the land soon too.  Titus will be so excited to have even more animals to chase!

On the wilder side, we had these 6 lovely turkeys hanging out at our house for about 3 weeks last month.  They would hang out in the trees and wander around our front and back yards.  Titus of course chased them as often as he could, but they didn't really seem to care all that much.

We really enjoy all of these animals, especially since we don't have to take care of them!  Hope you enjoyed a little tour of our neighborhood farm.

B is for Brokaw

My first autumn craft this year was a big B.  The stuff for this project had been sitting in my craft room for over a year- oops!  It's just a big letter cutout from Michael's and yarn that I thought would look cozy.  This project took a lot longer than I expected.  I had no idea that wrapping and gluing yarn would take so long!  I like how it turned out, but there were a lot of curves that made things a little tricky.  Here it is on our front porch bench with the pumpkin from our garden.  It will probably end up living on our fireplace mantel at some point.