One Down

Ok, so I listed things to get done in February.  The first one was the mug rugs for my sister.  Sooo...here they are!

She lives in St. Croix with 3 roommates, so here is a mug rug for each of them.  I wonder if they'll fight over which belongs to who.  Gotta love Valori Wells, huh?  Those elephants are awesome.

Enjoy, guys.

Brownie and Babies

I have 11 dogs and 3 cats at my house.  Yup, you read that correctly.  Here's why.

Brownie came in to the Rescue last Wednesday with her seven one-week old babies.  The shelter we transferred her from said she was "a bit shy".  I wasn't at the intake when she arrived; I already had 3 puppies, but I was told she tried to bite someone when they tried to take her out of her crate.  She was obviously terrified, and quite reasonably, was protecting her babies.  She was supposed to be taken by a foster who was brand new to our organization.  However, this is a lot to ask of someone the first time around.  Sooo (you see where this is going, right?).  That's right!  It was 5:30, I had just finished walking Daemon and Sirius, and had time to shower and get some dinner before leaving for work at 6:00.  I was going to be somewhere on time for once!  Emma, who runs the rescue, called, and I answered.  I never answer.  Those who know me can vouch for this.  She tells me Brownie's story and asks if I can come get her.  So, like someone with no sense, I say, "Sure, no problem!  I can handle this."    


I quickly set up a pen in Tony's office, he was out of town by the way, turned up the heat, and jumped in the car.  When I got there, Brownie and her babies were in a huge pen in the rescue wagon.  There was no way that was going to fit in my car.  Everyone at intake, was, as they should have been, dealing with the other 13 or so pups who came in.  Time to improvise!  Brownie had calmed down in the van alone, so she let us take her pups out of the crate, though the person who did it wore bite gloves.  We were worried that Brownie would panic and squish the young 'uns, so I looked for a suitable way to transport them.  I found a tupperware box labeled "rice."  That'll work!  So we nestled the babies in a fleece blanket in the box (no lid) and put them in the back of my car next to the crate where we were going to put Brownie.  Now, Brownie had to change cars.  Like I said, I'm not sure what had happened earlier, but everyone was reluctant to touch her.  They got a slip lead around her neck and pulled her out of the crate while she fought to stay where she was with all her might.  They dragged her the 5 feet between the cars and then practically hung her getting her into the crate in the back of my car.  I'm ashamed I didn't interfere, but I was a little shocked and didn't know what was going on.  So I left for home in a hurry, calling work to say I would be late.  I brought the pups in first, put them in the pen and then carried in the crate holding Brownie.  She can't weigh more than 35 lbs or so.  I didn't have time to sit and coax her out, so I put the crate near the pen with the puppies, left the door open, and went to work.  I wasn't going to drag her around by the neck again, and I really didn't want to use the bite gloves that were sent home with me.  


There's bound to be more to this story, lets hope it has a happy ending...I'll let you know. 

Oh yeah, quilting/sewing

I have been a little remiss both in my quilting and my blogging about it.  However, I am making a commitment to do better.  I have several goals for February.


1) Finish group of rug mugs for sister-DONE!
2) Start and finish quilt for my friend Theresa's son Alex-DONE!
3) Finish the quilt my mother is !paying! me to make for my sister's bedroom at my parents' house.
4) Make a bag for my sister (a very late Christmas present)-DONE!
5) Make the Maxi dress by Art Gallery-I think I'm giving myself a pass here...can't get the putative recipient to give me her measurements, and I am not going to guess on something like this.


These are the musts.  There are a lot of other "would like to's."


Will update with photos and progress.

Puppy Progress (yes, I'm bad at titles)

The lovely Teal is now Piper!  What a wonderful name.  She was adopted by a good friend of mine, so I will get to see her often as she grows up.  Sirius will also be so pleased about the puppy playdates.  


My three babies, Wynken, Blynken and Nod, went up for adoption last Saturday.  They were supposed to wait another week, but they had grown up, even with the rough start to their lives, and were so ready for their own homes and new owners/guardians/parents (what is the best term?  not sure).  They needed more attention than I could give them (more on that in another post).  They were ready to start learning commands, walking on leash and bonding with new families, away from their sibs.


Nod, the small brown and black one, got adopted right away, during the first round of interviews for the day.  His new family is awesome, its a woman and her 24 year old daughter.  The mother works from home and will be with Nod all the time.  He will be happy and house-trained in no time.  They had also been watching some dog training videos and are very excited about training her themselves.


At the very end of the day, a family, mom, dad and toddler, showed up at the adoption event.  They were "just looking," but they fell in love with Wynken.  Easy to do!  So he found a great home as well.  They have been posting pictures of him on our facebook wall.


"Poor" Blynken, came back home with me...why?  Is it a black dog thing?  Is it a girl dog thing?  Hmmm.  Anyway, true to form, when a puppy has always been with their sibs and suddenly finds herself alone, she cries, and whines, and howls-a lot.  So she has ended up in the bed with us, no accidents, no problems.  Why  do people say dogs shouldn't sleep in the bed?  It's easiest for everyone, in many cases.  She experienced her first snow today, and will be back up for adoption tomorrow.  There is a lot for a puppy to learn and experience about life.


She's gone from this:

To this:

It only took four weeks!  Who wouldn't want to take this home to love and snuggle with?  (And also, sigh, "My, don't they grow up fast?").  Her face is so expressive.  I think it's the ears.

So, while Blynken has been enjoying being part of the family, irritating the cats, playing with Sirius, trying to steal Daemon's food and bully sticks and just generally being underfoot.  Like a puppy!

Wish her luck tomorrow!

Doggie Doings

In addition to the tiny cuties I showed you a few days ago, I have another foster.

This photo was taken one of the few times she's not either playing with Sirius, chewing (probably something she shouldn't) or cuddled up against you like the sweetest baby you've ever seen.  Her name is Teal (for some reason that week they were all named after colors), I don't think it fits her, so I've been calling her Little Girl, which is also lame, but coming up with a name is hard.  Daemon was "puppy" for about 3 weeks after we got him.  Sirius was named on the way home, but we had 16 hours, so that's a lot of thinking and discussing time.


Anyway, I got her and her two sisters about 2 weeks ago on a Tuesday.  One of them looked just like Teal, the other was white with black splotches.  They were adopted before I got photos of them (only had them 2 days) and I have no idea why Teal is taking so long to go.  She is just as cute and sweet as they were  


The first night she was here without her sibs, we put her back in the x-pen where they had been staying, and she screamed and whined for over a half-hour.  This totally make sense.  It was mean of us to even try this, but it gets difficult with all the critters in the house.  She had probably never been alone for a second in her life before that night; she was always with her mom and/or sibs.  I really, honestly, believe that it is cruel to force a dog to sleep in a room alone.  Not cruel to keep them in a crate or on a dog bed, if that is what you prefer, but cruel to leave them all alone, especially when they are very young or in a strange, new environment.  Dogs are pack animals, descended from wolves, and they would rarely or never be alone if left to their own devices.  Sleeping together is one thing the pack always does, so when you bring a dog into your home/pack, you owe it to them to sleep in the same room.  It's important to cement the bond you will share.


Anyway, I couldn't do the tough love thing, so we brought her into the bed with us.  Our dogs, of course, are always welcome to sleep in the bed; one of them does, one of them doesn't.  Normally, I would set up a pen next to the bed for a foster, but basically, I was exhausted and took the path of least resistance.  It turned out to be a great thing for this particular dog.  She curled up between our pillows with her head on Tony's neck, fell fast asleep and slept till morning without getting up.  She's been doing the same thing ever since.  We put a puppy pad at the foot of the bed, and if she needs to potty, she hops off the bed and goes, and then gets back in bed.  This wouldn't work with many 8 week old puppies, but it did with her, and once we saw how much she loved snuggling with us, we were glad we did it.  Fostering one dog is much different than fostering a litter.  You get to know them better because you have so much more one on one time with them.  You also get more attached.  She and Sirius have become fast friends.

He may like having foster puppies more than I do.  He will be two years old in April, which is pretty young, but I think he's a dog who will always be a puppy at heart.  My perma-puppy!

In other news, I finally bound and washed a quilt that had been sitting around, almost finished, for several months.  I have it in my head that binding takes forever, but now that I do it by machine, it's really no big deal.  A couple of hours, max.  It turned out great, and I now have another quilt hanging around the place.

I do love this line of fabric; Eva by Basic Gray.  I have still more of it to use...wonder how?

OK, I'm back

It can be a bit circular, this blogging thing, you know?  It's hard to write if no one is reading, but it's hard to get readers if you aren't writing.  So, really, I guess I'll start writing this for myself, to record what's going on in my life.


So here it is:


I sold my first (and second and third) quilt(s)!  The first was one I consigned at a lovely shop in Denver (one with a lovely owner, as well), Fabric Bliss.  

I hope that whoever bought this, or received it as a gift, loves it!


Then, a friend of mine commissioned two quilts, one for her mother in law and one for her son.  The second one is still in the works, but the first was gifted for Christmas.  It was fun to make and fun to quilt.  I quilted "Merry Christmas, [recipient]" on it several times, in addition to the stippling.  I wonder if she found it yet, or if she ever will.

Sorry for the terrible pictures, but I had to get it in the mail!

I was also able to send a friend a fun quilt for her new daughter!  It's made of Crayon Forest, which I totally love and think is sooo appropriate for a baby quilt.

So, quilting-wise I have been a bit lazy, but I've completed a few things, and I have a few more in the works.

In other news, these are my current foster puppies.  They are 5 weeks old, and their mother rejected them, so I am taking care of them until they are old enough to be adopted.  Meet Wynken (black and white), Blynken (black) and Nod (black and brown).

This was their first time outside.  Aren't they ridiculously cute?  I hope those ears grow though...right now they look kinda funny.  We were told they are husky/shepherd mixes, but they seem pretty small for that, all b/t 2 and 3 lbs at 5-ish weeks.  It's fun to see what they become as they get older.

I lost a friend today (spoiler, not a person)

Can I write a whole post about irons?  Let's find out.


Today, my iron died.  The old Rowenta made a funny smell, and then it started cooling off and wouldn't get hot again, even when I shook it.  This tipped me off that something was wrong.  The light was still on, so I took it to my boyfriend, who knows about things that run off of electricity.  He pried it apart, did some stuff (yes, I was there, no, I don't know what, exactly) and confirmed that it was dead.


Now, this particular iron was sent with me to college by my mother.  She assumed I needed an iron, because I had clothes, I guess, plus, I think she wanted a new one.  This one might be as old as I am.  She probably remembered, like I do, me ironing my Dad's handkerchiefs (really, handkerchiefs-geez Dad was in his 30s, not his 80s!?) with that same iron when I was maybe seven years old.  I remember ironing shirts, too.  I'm sure she had to redo those!  However, by the time I got to college, ironing was not my thing, and I don't think I touched the thing but once or twice except to move it with me to the 14 different places I lived over the next 10 years.  If it didn't come out of the drier looking good, it either went away or I wore it wrinkled.


All that changed the day I decided to start quilting.  I reluctantly figured out that that iron and I were going to become best friends, and I used the hell out of that iron, although I still didn't iron any clothes.  At first, I pressed all my seams open...I don't know why.  Seemed like a good idea.  I also actually ironed my fabric and my blocks!.  As in, scrubbing, back and forth, back and forth.  Ohhhhh, I didn't know it at the time, but I made my life very difficult that way.  Matching seams and sewing blocks together seemed impossible.  Then, I started reading blogs, learned about "pressing" and eventually took a class on accuracy.  Half of that class involved an iron.  It was the first time I heard of setting seams and I also learned the correct ways to press seams to one side, press fabric, and press a completed block.  Man there are a lot of things that a quilter needs to do that require an iron.


For the past two and a half years, for worse and then for much better, that iron and I have been daily companions.  Now, she is no more.  And I need a new iron, pronto!  Can't do a thing without an iron.  But how do you pick an iron?  They all seem comparable from $30-$200.  Stainless vs. non-stick sole seems to be a big question.  Wattage, vertical steam (who cares?), auto-off.  They all have all these features.  Brand name?  (Keep in mind I'm looking at Target and Wal-mart here.)  Black and Decker, Sunbeam, Rival, Rowenta, Hamilton Beach.  Who knows?  Any advice would be appreciated, even though I already bought a cheapo to get me through.