The Hard Part

....The hardest part of owning a dog is when you have to make that awful decision about taking that final trip to the vet. It is perhaps the kindest thing we ever do for our old dogs and also it's the hardest thing we ever do. So, with very heavy hearts, tomorrow afternoon we will bid farewell to our sweet old girl, Sneakers. She has been the princess of our home for almost 15 years. As Ditto was my "body & soul", so Sneakers is for Stephen. I'm not sure how he will be able to watch a movie without her nestled on his chest.

Despite the problems they have had getting along, I'm sure that Arlo is going to have a tough adjustment. He will suddenly be an "only dog". Perhaps now he will settle down some and be less paranoid since he won't have Sneakers tormenting him.

We love you Miss Sneak -- you will always be in our hearts. Know that Ditto is waiting there, at the Bridge for you. Give him our love.

"Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our life whole." -- Roger Caras

Long Time....

2-1/2 years.....I guess you could say I've been M.I.A. I'm going to try to do a better job at updating. I'm motivated by reading so many of the blogs of Ravelry users. Ravelry is a big time warp for me. I sit down at the computer for "just 10 minutes". But, if I head to Ravelry, at least an hour passes before I know it.

If you are a knitter or crocheter, and you haven't checked out Ravelry, do so now! It's the greatest thing to happen to the fiber world. I wish the quilting world had something equal to Ravelry. But then again, I'm kinda glad they don't. There wouldn't be enough hours in the day.

Meanwhile, back to my life. A lot has happened. Right now I'm in the midst of a MAJOR sewing room re-organization. New quilting table for the HQ16, new, adjustable height table for the sewing machines. All new cabinets for storage of all that fabric and yarn. There is still a lot of reorganization to be done before I can post pictures. I never realized just how much fabric I actually have. The joys of discovery....

L.

Catching Up

Whew, has it really been 3 weeks since I've posted anything?!? Ok, but this time I have a really good excuse. Honest.

I have been busy. I finished a long-standing quilt project and another non-quilt project. The quilt project in one that I have been working on off and on for the past 7 years or so. My great-aunt started a quilt from a kit. The entire top was cross stitched and then quilted with a rather elaborate quilt pattern that had been pre-stamped on the top. Jessie had completed all the cross stitch and about 1/4 of the hand quilting. Well, I can now say that ALL the hand quilting is complete and the binding is completed. I'm just awaiting a picture of Jessie to include on the label before I send it off to Amanda, the granddaughter she never got to meet.

The other rather time consuming project I completed was insulated window coverings for all 8 of the windows in the Westfalia. I used Warm Window and backed the batting side with silver mylar. Then I made yards and yard and yards of bias binding which, due to the thickness and uncooperativeness (is that a word?) of the mylar, the binding had to be sewn in two stages. Then, with Stephen's help we added grommets and suction cups. The window coverings were put to the test when we joined 26 or so other VW's at Bridge Creek Campground outside of Leavenworth for a weekend campout. Sunday morning the temperature was a brisk 35º. With the warm window coverings and my "hot water dog", we only used the portable heater to warm things up in the morning before we crawled out of bed.

Speaking of Arlo, he's finally showing signs of maturing. At almost 18 months we've been able to see little signs of him settling down. He's still in agility and loving it. But, that's with the help of Xanax before class. I don't know that we will ever be able to compete with him because he still wants to kill every other dog he sees, sigh. We left Sneakers at home this weekend and had hoped that on his own, Arlo would react differently to other dogs but that was not to be. If things don't change in that regard, it's going to be a long 12 years or so....