Welcome to Henrietta's Other Hat

I started blogging in a storm of rage and grief when eBay changed from a community built on a level playing field to a nasty place, a place that had no room for the thousands of small sellers who made eBay what it was. That blog was and still is Red Ink Diary. Red Ink Diary turned from a rant into a genuine eCommerce blog and moved off blogger onto my website on a self hosted Wordpress format. On Red Ink I review venues, payment processors, current affairs in the eCommerce world and things important to those small sellers like me who are trying to eke out a living on the intertubes.

This blog is for the other Henrietta, wearing my other hat as it were. I will write about my day to day life in the shabby, old, shamefully cluttered ranch style house on a half acre lot just outside a small country town where I live with my husband of many years who manages a ranch, raising both black and red Angus.

Our children are grown and gone. We share our home with far too many cats and dogs, many of whom had been abandoned or ill treated, all of whom needed a forever home. We do not limit the sharing to small animals, there are also far too many horses but they don't live at the house. I have four pet sheep, Larry, Liza, Emma and Olga, who live in our back yard, with Mr Quigley the pig. I keep chickens and grow a few vegetables.

I have a weakness for antique and vintage treadle and handcrank sewing machines, English transferware, quilts and quilting. I am sure you will hear about all of them, but mostly about quilting.

My everyday sewing machine is a 1933 Singer 15. It is a treadle machine but I confess I have an electric motor bolted onto the back. I make everything on that machine from clothes to rag rugs, drapes and slip-covers, and once a coat for an orphaned baby pig! I like to make patchwork quilts best of all.

Y'all come back!