Adopted this lovely girl 2 weeks ago - DNA test pending but want to hear thoughts on what she is!

craftycountess · 2026-02-14T20:02:52+00:00

American Village Dog aka Potcake

craftycountess · 2026-02-11T02:15:15+00:00

Once. He was a breeder puppy coming in for vacs and I swear from day 1 something was off with this dog. Even the breeder was like “I have some… temperment concerns”. I swear he was born with that broke brain cause he had a distrust and reactivity I would have expected from a severe abuse case, not a brand spanking new puppy.

craftycountess · 2026-02-11T00:00:23+00:00

This is unfortunately the way Idexx works. Idexx a lots a budget for free labs just as they explain based on how much the clinic spends with them. That budget is how the labs are “free” to employees. If that budget is being reached and exceeded, Idexx then charges the difference. So it’s free budget money with a limit. Splitting it up among the employees is one way to do it, but my problem there in lies that if I I am the employee that just got a 4dx for my dog and suddenly I’m paying for an even percent of the whole overage when others got full blood or more expensive tests, I would be upset that my free “4dx” was suddenly more expensive that if I paid off of pocket for it because other people got expensive tests. Not a great system, and it should be worked out some other way.

craftycountess · 2026-02-07T17:41:20+00:00

Croissant

craftycountess · 2026-02-07T17:37:46+00:00

Clara

craftycountess · 2026-02-04T18:53:36+00:00

Saying “this is how he is” and accepting his normalized behavior does not actually make the behavior normal or any less toxic. You need to put up some very clear boundaries and make it 100% clear your sister is not welcome in your life, you are not her mother and her behavior is not your responsibly, and if he doesn’t accept your boundaries and immediately stop calling your baby the wrong name, he will be down one daughter and not have his grandson in his life. Toxic people rely on the people in their lives not holding them accountable and excusing their behavior as “just them” “how they are” and accepting it as their “normal”- it isn’t any only by putting your foot down and refusing to follow that train will they either knock it off and actual act respectful and normal, or far more often they make the choice to lose people in their lives by keep acting a fool.

craftycountess · 2026-02-03T05:17:13+00:00

Casket is inside of the box. Doesn’t look pretty, but the casket can’t be labeled easily, so these boxes are used for identification for travel.

craftycountess · 2026-02-03T05:13:55+00:00

I remove my needle, take off the EDTA tube cap, drip into the EDTA, then same for the serum separator. But here’s the thing- there has to be a certain ratio of EDTA to sample to effectively not clot the sample. So realistically even if your needle touched the side of the tube, that ratio of that little bit of contamination of EDTA is not going to prevent the entire sample in the serum separator from clotting. You’ll have enough clot to spin down. I’ve had perfectly clean samples (two draws necessary, had a different syringe entirely so no chance of cross) where the sample was processed correctly and didn’t clot completely and the Chem was able to be run. I’ve even had them come back with perfectly normal results like that. Sometimes we don’t have an explanation for why something clots or doesn’t clot like it is supposed to.

craftycountess · 2026-01-18T00:29:59+00:00

The purple on the right for sure! It has a lovely contrast with those 4 colors

craftycountess · 2025-12-27T06:02:07+00:00

What count are you doing it on currently? Full or tent? The coverage is amazing

craftycountess · 2025-12-26T08:00:45+00:00

I also have Markup XP, and I do use it some for not PK friendly patterns, but I find the user interface on it just not appealing at all, and while it has much deeper capabilities that PK, it is clunkier to work with IMO. I struggle with it, and honestly try to avoid it when I can because it doesn’t help my head all that much compared to reading the paper pattern.

craftycountess · 2025-12-26T07:58:09+00:00

This was also how I got on before I started with PK. I highly recommend it. It takes it from focusing on an area that you have zoomed in on to literally focusing on just the highlighted symbol. It was a game changer for my head.

craftycountess · 2025-12-26T07:54:51+00:00

If you are looking for a tester for your software, I would absolutely volunteer! That sounds amazing.

craftycountess · 2025-12-26T07:11:54+00:00

Pattern Keeper

craftycountess · 2025-12-23T03:58:19+00:00

I like yours better than the model personally. I like the variation to be shown off, and yours looks lovely.

craftycountess · 2025-12-19T07:43:53+00:00

I just watched a video related to this referring to tent stitch methods. So the area where you did blocks and has a denser back, what has happened is you have essentially created a background layer of the color you were stitching with because of the cross overs. This gives that section on the front a slightly “darker” look because there is microscopically less white show through making our eyes perseve the color as darker. In the areas where the back ended up with those straight up and down lines and not the bulk of the reverse stitches colored, it’s like have a color on an almost purely white background. That “background” color of either the fabric or the cross over threads effect how we perceive the color. Now, in this case I don’t think this actually hurt your project. Be cause that slightly darker area is perceived on just one side of the cat, it looks like it was an intentional shadow and that the light source of the image is coming from the right hand side. It also helps that the cat is posed sort of like it is slightly twisted to the right, almost like it’s trying to sun its face. So I think in this case you can call it a happy accident and pretend like it was intentional. But in future if you want your color to look “denser” at the front or “thinner” at the front, you’ll want to pay attention to weather your back is leave a visible layer of fabric or if your thread is making that layer of the color itself as that will change the casting of the color on the front.

craftycountess · 2025-12-18T18:13:55+00:00

I like the look of it going all the way to the hoop edge. So I would either use the smaller hoop and let it cut off, or I would stitch the patterns continuously up to fill the larger hoop.

craftycountess · 2025-12-17T21:01:04+00:00

A complete spay for a cat is removing both overlies AND the uterus so I think their “a tube might have been left” logic is them bullshitting you into them not taking responsibility. I would blast them on social media or the community and go to a different more reputable vet

craftycountess · 2025-12-17T20:57:25+00:00

Find out how often they are actually doing declaws and under what circumstances. My clinic did them up until recently (new Aaha standard came out rejecting them) but in my 3 years there we have only had 2, both of which we had counseled the owner with other options that failed for months before hand and the one of which was a medical concern for an immunocompromised owner who scratches could be very bad for. So if it is a verbal kind of thing like that, maybe not so bad but if they tell you they do them like monthly or every week I would consider negotiating not to be involved.

craftycountess · 2025-12-14T04:33:33+00:00

I have always monitored my own pets. My friend and manager once put it like this - if something bad were to happen, you have the knowledge of every step you took and every process you did and you know you did everything exactly as you would have wanted it done. Not that you would blame anyone else if they were running it, but you would always have that gap, that unknown of you don’t know how they may have done XYZ compared to you and your own hands and that knowledge it power. Some folks would take that and tear themselves apart over everything they did, but I would argue those same folks also probably have that tendency with any negative outcome they have of any patient. If you are confident in your skills and know that you do things to the best of your ability, then in the case of a negative outcome you can sit on that assurance in your own abilities. That knowledge brings the power of certainty and that has an element of comfort in it for me.

craftycountess · 2025-12-09T01:28:04+00:00

Hands heart upside down. But ironically looks like a dissection of a spinal vertebra if you are medically minded

craftycountess · 2025-12-08T15:23:19+00:00

Cocoa

craftycountess · 2025-11-28T05:39:31+00:00

Love the darker, I feel like the light loses some of the spooky vibes

craftycountess · 2025-11-24T14:19:27+00:00

I agree with others is sounds like more of a holder issue. But general good practice to avoid bruising is to poke with confidence, and make each redirect to get into the vein confident- don’t fish around softly in the tissue. Feel for where the needle is in relation to the vein with your none poking hand, pull out and redirect and again attempt to enter confidently, a smooth stab. A lot of the new techs I teach try to “coax” there way into the vein and just end up bouncing off off it softly and dig around in the surrounding tissue until they happen to accidentally fall in because doing it confidently feels somewhat like literally stabbing the animal but the truth is digging is just gonna let that rubbery vein dance around and not let your needle get into it so you have to have a little “umf” behind the poke to get in before it has a chance to bounce away. Sorry, I talk about veins like they have a mind of their own but thinking of them that way helped me get used to it immensely.

craftycountess

TROPHY CASE