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.

Loki

Loki is one of the kitties that I bottle raised in 2008, and coerced Tony (the bf) into adopting before we lived together.  He is 3 years old now.  This photo is of him smushed into the bed I bought on etsy for my 6.5 lb dog.  Loki weighs 17 lbs.  


Loki loves to go outside, and well, we let him.  In Jackson, WY, where we used to live, the main worries were coyotes and owls (although it would be a stout owl who could take the Lokes).  Here it is cars.  


Saturday, Loki lost his luck and collided with a vehicle (spoiler, he's still with us).  He must have been chasing something, because he knows enough about cars to be scared of them.  Anyway, he made it back to the house and we took him to the vet where we found out he had severe internal injuries that required emergency surgery at CSU.  It's a good thing we are crazy pet people, because we took him to the vet for being lethargic, not because we had any idea he'd been hit by a car.


Now, Loki looks like this, and will for a while.

He is shaved and has stitches up and down the length of his belly, and he has to wear a cone of shame to make sure he doesn't chew on them.  He's also confined to a room where there is nothing to jump on.  He is still in pain, but already bored out of his mind.  What do you do to entertain a sick cat?  The answer with dogs is raw bones and bully sticks.  But those don't work for cats.  Hmmm.


Loki's sister, Leda, hasn't been outside since this happened, but she's miserable and bored, waiting at the door and mewing.  Loki will be in the same position in about 4 weeks.  So what do we do?  Do we make our cats happy, knowing and accepting the risks, or do we keep them inside, safe, bored and miserable?  You may not have to answer this question if you were smart enough to always keep your cats in, but we used to have a dog door, and guess what...cats can use it, too.  So they discovered outside on their own, and we didn't stop them.  This is a question we haven't answered yet, it's really a tough one.  I'll let you know if we come up with a magic conclusion.  The reality is that someday they will probably get past us, no matter how hard we try, and end up outside again.  Because that's what they want, and cats are slippery, smart little buggers.


Just to make this a bit quilty...also in Loki's sick room:

My stash!  So I visit him and it often.

Difficult Quilt (for me, anyway)

So, I'm working on what is the most time-consuming and intricate quilt I have made to date.  That's not to say it will take the longest, or that it's technically that hard, it's just a lot of little pieces, which is something that either I have avoided or that just doesn't appeal to me.  It's Freckled Whimsy's charm pack quilt-along.  Yes, I am more than a year late to the party.  But it's cool, and I discovered it to late to actually quilt along.  So after working on it for about 3 weeks (among other things), I have 6 out of 25 blocks finished.

A very small number of block parts fully trimmed (this is the worst part... so tedious)

A large number of  square block parts waiting to be trimmed.

A large number of triangle block parts waiting to be trimmed, and even more that have yet to be sewn.

Two per day, that's my goal (breathes into paper bag).  I started the two per day thing two days ago, and I'm doing well.  I've completed one of my two for today.  I hope this quilt is TOTALLY worth it.  I'll let you know.

In other news, here is a 7 lb puppy sleeping in the crate that belongs to 100 lb Daemon.  Obligatory cute puppy picture anyone?

Stained Glass and On the Design Wall

Here is a very cool (well, I think so anyway) stained glass photo:

This is the top of a quilt for a friend of mine, and seeing as it is based on Elizabeth Hartman's Kitchen Windows pattern, I had to get this photo.  

This is the quilt that's on my design wall right now.  It is Eva by Basic Grey, and is based on i'm a ginger monkey's tutorial.  I did it the easy way, with a charm pack and a layer cake.

The design wall is how I get my boyfriend involved in my sewing.  I make the blocks, then sometimes he either designs or helps me design the quilt, then I sew, sandwich, quilt and bind.  He thinks he's going to make a quilt start to finish for his mom.  It involves applique, and so far, he has cut out 10 pieces.  It's going to be a long process :-).

Hope you enjoy the photos!  I'm trying to get better about taking them on a regular basis.

My other hobby

So, besides quilting, I foster dogs.  The group I foster for and volunteer with is Rocky Mountain Puppy Rescue.  They/we bring puppies in from areas of Kansas and New Mexico where there are fewer people likely to adopt, and the dogs are at a high risk of euthanasia.  Right now I have four fosters.  One five month old shepherd puppy, and three 8 week old furry things, two of whom look like shiba inus, the other looks like a little chow.  

This is the shepherd mix, Mesa.  She was found wandering the streets of Taos, NM with her mom and two sibs at about 4 months old.  Now she's 5 months old, and hopefully living with us for a while gets her over her fear of people and unknown things.  She has good reason to be scared, and it's our job to help her get ready for a home of her own.  She's already getting more confident, which in her case means acting more like a typical, destructive, happy go lucky, puppy.

This is Bloom, the chow looking girl.  Her sisters are Bella and Bliss, and they have an upper respiratory infection, so they are separated from everyone else.  It isn't easy on us or them to essentially have 3 sets of puppies plus our own two dogs and three cats, but we do it because it gives us great satisfaction and it's a way to give back to these guys who give us so much.

If you love animals, you should consider doing this.  So many people say "It would be too hard, I'd fall in love with all of them," "I wouldn't be able to give them up," etc.  When people do keep their fosters, we call it a foster failure, and it does happen.  But usually, these are people who have the room, time, money and love for another pet, and fostering just helped them find the right one.  We have been fostering for 3 years, and have no foster failures.  In fact, neither of our dogs came from the rescue we work with.  One came from Idaho, one from Kansas.  That's not to say we haven't fallen in love, its just that we feel good about giving these animals a stopping point on their way, and we work with a rescue which lets us help choose the eventual permanent home of the dog, so we can feel confident they are going to a great forever home.  So, my house isn't spotless, it's full of exercise pens, I could vacuum twice a day and I am constantly doing some dog chore, but to me, it is totally worth it.

OK, off my soap box.  I'll tell you more soon about our guys, and how we train them, exercise them, feed them, and generally make sure they have great lives.