Guinea fowl hatching timeline

Guinea Fowl

Hatching timeline.

This year’s guinea keet hatches were especially successful, so I’m going to record it on my blog, so I can find it next year. Right now, my notes are scribbled on a scrap of card stock!

I’ll write down more details later, in regards to the incubator we have, and how we manage to hatch so many live keets and keep them alive. But, for today, because I am preparing for a road trip and have a jacket I want to sew and a studio to tidy up, here is my schedule.

The day before loading the incubator, make sure it’s clean, has a stable surface to sit on where you will check it regularly, turn it on and get it to the appropriate humidity.

Day 1 - When incubator is ready, set the eggs in. Our incubator has a simple, but effective, automatic turner and I highly recommend that. I try to keep the humidity around 35-45% from days 1-23 and the temperature at 37.2C. My little humidistat is in Celsius.

Day 23 - Stop the egg turner and increase humidity to 70% or over and increase the heat to 37.5C.

Those are the 2 most important dates. I didn’t know to turn the egg turner off the first time, and 4 of the keets ended up with splayed legs from jumping over the frame that turns the eggs.

A couple of other important modifications that I made. I cut a shelf liner to fit and on the day I stopped turning the eggs, I carefully put that liner under the eggs before leaving them alone. I worked quickly and carefully and then upped the humidity right away.

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Day 25 is when my guinea keets almost always start hatching and I’ve had hatches go as long as day 31.

Questions for me? Leave them in the comments!

Anne Dovel

The Hug Hoodie Sweatshirt

I love sweatshirts. My favorite outfit, that I would wear every day if it were cool enough, is jeans and a sweatshirt. We are taking a little road trip to Montana this week, and I really didn’t need one more thing to do, but I knew I had some grey French terry in my stash. And, I knew a sweatshirt really wouldn’t take long to sew. I don’t even know if I’m procrastinating on something else, which is usually the case when I decide to make something right before a trip.

I started searching on Instagram, which is my favorite place to find new garment patterns, and ran across the Hug Hoodie by MadeIt Patterns. I was drawn to MadeIt Pattern’s modern, fun children’s patterns awhile back, but I don’t really have a little to sew for anymore. You should go look, if you like funky, modern patterns.

I wasn’t really sure if I would like the angled waist on the Hug Hoodie, but since I have tried to stop overthinking my projects and just dive in, I decided to give it a go. It’s just fabric, after all, and a little time.

Overall, the pattern is really well written, and easy to follow. I think even with the blunder when I thought I knew the next step and ended up having to pick out a seam, it took less than 2 hours. I have an old Bernina serger, which speeds things up when sewing with knits, for sure. I also had some really nice ribbing yardage, in 2 shades of blue, that I picked up for a song at Goodwill last winter.

During construction, I got a wild hair, that I should dunk the grey sweatshirt fabric into my indigo bucket. I’ve been playing with Indigo from Dharma Trading. It’s just the kit they sell, but I’m already so hooked, it’s not funny; not as hooked as my niece, who just extracted her own indigo from plants that she grew. Amazing!

I skipped putting on the cuffs, and finished the construction, including the hood; I had some beautiful navy and white knit from a t-shirt that I made, which I used to line the hood. I zigzagged the raw edges of the sleeves to keep them neat, and dunked the whole thing in my indigo bucket. That was a good call. My dyeing experience is very, very amateur and can be generally summed up with this phrase, “let’s see what happens.” I really wasn’t worried about the possibility of it ending up uneven, since I like the distressed sweatshirt look.

After I dyed, washed, and dried it, I put the cuffs on and it was finished. And, I am smitten! I love the waist detail and it’s so comfy not having a waistband to keep adjusting, since it hangs loosely. The sleeves are a more modern cut, so if I want it to be roomier next time, for more layering, I will have to alter the sleeve and add some more ease in. I did choose a size 12, so I would have more room, and it’s really not too baggy at all, even a couple sizes bigger than I would choose if I were making a t-shirt.

You can see the pictures here until I have time to upload them!

Next up, a jacket I’ve been crazy about since I first saw it, the Wiksten Haori kimono style jacket.

Have a beautiful day. A severe thunderstorm rolled through at 4:30am, and ordinarily, I would just sleep through it, but it must have caught me during a light sleep. So, I got up, and cut out the lining to the jacket. I’ll really try to take pictures, but when I start to sew, I like to sew…not just write about sewing!

Anne - The Fit Quilter

Time for another Facebook break!

In April, I decided to give myself the gift of no posting on my Facebook personal profile for 30 days. And it turned out to be a splendid gift to myself. But, I have business on Facebook, so over time, I started scrolling and commenting and went back to posting on my profile. In the last couple of weeks, I shared some deeper thoughts, and got many positive comments back. It seemed like everyone was a friend. Then, one day, I posted a campaign video, because I thought what was said, was valid. Crickets. And not just crickets, but ghosting.

Now, I’m a big girl, I can handle it. But, it made me think a lot about how we are fooled into thinking we have real connection on social media. I’ve met people, and built connection from Facebook, but do you really have connection ON Facebook?

Another thing that happens often on Facebook, is the random stranger, you’ve never ever heard from, will comment, but most often, only to tell you how wrong you are. Friends just don’t comment. The mask debate; who could have predicted how mean people could get if you didn’t agree with their mask philosophy? I didn’t predict it, but after a conversation in late March with someone, I did tell my best friend, this is going to divide churches, businesses and damage friendships. And, sadly, it is doing that and has done that.

But, I’m not here to talk about masks. Heavens…are we sick of that topic yet? I still make a few custom masks for people, but thankfully, cheap, mass-produced masks are in all the box stores now. That takes the pressure off!

So, why am I back to my blog? The toxicity level on Facebook is at an all time high. And, I like my life too much to be drowning in the epic fear mongering so prevalent on Facebook. I very much doubt that Zuckerberg and his employees have even close to the same beliefs, ideals, politics, faith as I do. But, they are pulling the strings, and I am not going to play that game on my personal page. So, I’m going to just let it be and post on my business page, and who knows…I may leave it that way.

So, let’s get at this blog thing. I have elderberries to harvest, sourdough to make, quilts and rope bowls to make and a blog to share it on.

Anne Dovel - The Fit Quilter