April Photo Dump

As rose season approaches, I have a lot of stuff to do outdoors and my blogging time has to yield to allow for this.  I spend as much time as I can in the garden getting the roses ready for their big show at the end of the month, and less time online.  

I haven't been writing blog posts very often, but I have been doing stuff and taking lots of photos.  Some of the photos get filed into my blog folder to use in future posts.  My infrequent blogging results in a glut of photos in that file ... which means that it's time for another Photo Dump!!

1.  I'm no floral designer, but I love to bring small bunches of flowers indoors.  The other day, I picked some of Lily of the Valley and a stem of Hellebore, and I dropped them into a vintage Farmer's Creamery bottle.  

2.  For the past two weeks, I spent my early mornings at the sewing machine making collars to beef up the inventory for events with Greyhounds Rock Fredericksburg ... one of which was Greyhounds in Gettysburg last weekend.  A couple of hours of effort over a period of time really adds up, because I was able to assemble 85 new collars!  (Each collar sells for $20, and all $20 is donated to GRF to benefit canine cancer research and support.)  Volunteers who worked the booth in Gettysburg told me that business was brisk and a LOT of lucky hounds are now sporting my snazzy collars.

Sugar Skull designs continue to be popular.

Alice appears to be doing a thorough quality control inspection on the heap of collars.

3.  In the middle of the collar-sewing period, my mom and I jetted to Charleston, South Carolina, for the 2016 annual meeting of the Southern Garden History Society ... a long weekend of touring gardens and plantations, listening to interesting speakers, eating fabulous food, and meeting new friends with like interests.  I took 700 photos during the trip, which I hope to distill into a blog post soon.

I love looking at clouds from above!

That blurry blob in the center of the frame at the horizon is Fort Sumter, as seen from the window of our hotel room.

4.  It was obvious that Winnie missed me while I was away.  She's not usually a lap dog, but she was for the first couple of days that I was home.  She just needed some mama time.

5.  I love sports, and I particularly love hockey.  Since the 1980s, I have been a fan of our home team, the Washington Capitals, through ups and downs, coaching and player changes, winning seasons and depressing losing seasons.  They are in the play-offs now, and my husband and I spend many an evening eating dinner on the sofa in front of a hockey game on TV.  Last week, we treated ourselves to take-out steak and cheese sandwiches.  At one point, I looked up from my plate and away from the TV and I saw this face.

Notice the drop of drool on her chin.

6.  I'm still working to donate unused/unwanted things that we don't need and to find places for other stuff in storage that I want to keep.  As I was staring into the living room the other morning, contemplating a new arrangement for the furniture, I took this photo.  I reminds me of a scene from an abandoned house or, as a FB friend remarked, a Van Gogh painting.  Either way, I think it's a pretty awesome image.  (My Donation Box is just out of the frame on the right.  It's getting full again, which means that it's almost time to make another run to the thrift shop.)

7.  Finally, we have this scene from the other morning, which is NOT the breakfast of champions ... a left-over piece of Red Velvet Cheesecake (courtesy of our daughter) and coffee in the mug that I bought at St. Paul's Cathedral in London two years ago.

This year, in addition to all of the normal spring things on our spring To Do list, stuff that we do every year to shake off winter, my husband and I are hosting the Stafford County Historical Society on May 21.  The garden will be ready as always, but we have to tidy and declutter the inside of the house, too.  A little over a week after this is Memorial Day, which is the day of this year's public Open Garden ... mark your calendar.

It's been cool and rainy for the past few days ... perfect conditions for pulling a LOT of weeds ... which is what I'm heading out to do right now.

Presenting ... Lots of Random Stuff

Blogging is a habit.  When I do it often, which hasn't happened in quite a while, it feels natural to sit down and put together a reasonable post and get on with life afterward.  When I put it off, and get out of the habit by letting other things take my blogging time, it's not so easy to get the old juices flowing.  I'm rusty, but I'm going to give this a go ... and I'm going to catch you up on all sort of stuff that has happened here in the past few weeks.  

I will start with "Roses, Wines, and Canines," our Greyhounds Rock fundraiser gathering that was held here last Sunday.  Our weather was perfect (cloudy and mild, with a light breeze) and our guests and vendors (and volunteers) had a really great time.  We raised about $1700 for GRF to donate to The Greyhound Health Initiative ... and we are already planning ways to make things even better when we do it all again next year.

We set up a big party tent ...

... and a designated fenced play space for our guests' dogs.

Anu and Myth waited patiently in their ex-pen while we set up on Friday.

My favorite part of our events, The Blessing of the Hounds.  Can you find me in the crowd?

While I'm on the subject of Greyhounds Rock ... I have been spending at least one day per week sewing collars to keep the GRF inventory up.  Sugar Skull collars continue to be the biggest seller, and it's difficult to keep a selection of them in stock.  Last week at the fabric store, I picked up two new skull fabrics.

A view of part of our collar inventory at our table at the recent Fredericksburg Pet Expo.  See Ruby in the background?

Dorothy was helping, as I laid out fabric to cut the strips that would be turned into collars.

This new fabric reminds me of the art used for The Beatles "Yellow Submarine"

Ruby is modeling the other new pattern, which I am calling "Hearts and Roses Skulls"

I am also making fleece dog toys for the GRF store.  I have a ton of fleece in my stash, and this is a way to use part of it and clear out space in my sewing room.

Fleece toy, which sells for $10.

Maggie thinks the pile of fleece is a high-rise cat bed.

It's not been 'all work and no play' for me, not hardly.  I make time to do fun stuff, too.  A few weeks ago, my husband and I skipped out for the day and went to see the NASCAR Xfinity Series race in Richmond.

It was an evening race.

Dinner is served.

Dessert, which lasted almost until the end of the race.

Post-race ceremonial burn-out by the winner.

Speaking of cars ... I have been spending some time re-learning to drive my Mustang.  Over the summer, it went to the shop and had a transmission transplant.  The car started life its life in 1966 as an automatic, and that's what it was when we bought it in 2002.  Now, thanks to the genius of my mechanic, it has a factory-correct 4-speed manual transmission and a very sporty Hurst shifter.  It has been decades since I drove a stick shift, and I was pleased to find that the muscle memory of clutch and shift is still there.  

Oooohhh ... shiny.

This new shifter is not so foreign to me anymore.

Lots of people I know go all out to decorate for Halloween.  I am not one of those people.

I got a colorful sugar skull wreath at Target for the front door ...

... and a haunted house nightlight plug in at Bath and Body Works.

Halloween and haunted houses makes me think of Poe, which brings me to my next bit of random-ness.  In May, Sharon (Goth Gardener) and I spent an evening at the monthly Unhappy Hour at the Poe Museum in downtown Richmond.  We had our picture taken in their photo booth ... and it was just posted on the museum web site earlier this week.  We were being so silly!

Photo booth photo.

Sharon took this one of me with a new friend.

September is a very busy time next door at Hartwood Winery.  My husband and I spent two Saturdays over there, harvesting grapes from the vineyard with other volunteers ... total harvest was six tons of red grapes and seven tons of white grapes ... all used to make Hartwood's wines.

Picking red Chambourcin grapes on September 13 ...

... with my husband and my sister ...

... and white Vidal grapes on September 26.

Yesterday was my birthday ... 56.  It's a number that I wear proudly.  I am what I am ... no sense in skirting the issue.  Besides, thanks to my parents and some fortunate genetics, I have never really looked my age.  That was a bit of a problem when I was younger and got carded all the time.  Now, I think of it as a blessing.

My husband's present to me was this cow that was painted by his friend Ed King.

I spent part of the day gathering and editing the photos in this post, with Dorothy chilling in my lap.

That brings us up to the present ... which is cold and rainy, as the remains of a coastal storm passes through our area.  There was concern that Hurricane Joaquin would affect us tomorrow and/or Monday, but that storm has turned eastward and should not be a factor for us at all.  My garden loves the rain that it has received (with this current storm and with a previous one last week).  Happy garden = Happy gardener.

Now it's your turn.  What have you been up to since we last 'talked'?

A Lot of Fuss Over Sugar Skulls

The whole thing started with an innocent photo on Facebook, the one you see below, and it turned into a full-blown feeding frenzy.

Let me explain.

Greyhounds Rock Fredericksburg will have a booth in the vendor market at the 'Greyt Escape Kennels to Kouches' event in Wheeling, West Virginia, this weekend.  For the past few weeks, in preparation for this, I have been sewing collars to beef up our inventory.  I post photos of some of the collars on the GRF Facebook page to publicize the event and build some interest.  I was shocked at the excitement that was sparked when I posted that simple image of a strip of Sugar Skulls on my sewing machine.

My sister shared the photo, and she tagged a friend, who tagged another friend.  Soon, I was fielding questions about custom sizes and different styles.  By the end of the day, 17 collars had been ordered ... all from that one photo on Facebook.  

I posted this photo a little later in the day ...

... and this one, too, of five finished martingale collars.

It took a couple of afternoons for me to make the collars to fill all of the orders.  There were all different sizes of martingale and snap buckle collars, for many different breeds of dogs ... from a miniature Dachshund to a pack of Bull Mastiffs.

I mailed all of the collars to their new homes last Friday, and I began receiving thank you notes from the recipients via email and FB on Monday ... some of which came with photos!

Pink loves her new snap buckle collar ...

... and Jack looks very smart in his martingale collar.

I was thrilled beyond words to get the photo of the five Bull Mastiffs, each of them sporting their fun new collar!

One photo, a single image, shared around one bit of cyberspace, had a huge impact.  The 17 collar orders that came from that photo added over $300 to the GRF treasury, to be donated to support canine cancer research.  I am humbled by the response, and proud to be a part of it.

I have to stop now, because I have more collars to make.  If you need me, I will be in the sewing room.

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If you are interested in ordering a custom collar for your pup, I will be glad to make it for you.  Fabric selections change depending on my mood and what has been donated for me to use.  As of now, I have materials to make collars in one-inch and one-and-a-half-inch widths, either in martingale style or with a snap buckle.  All collars are $20 each, plus postage, payable by PayPal or by check, all of which is donated to Greyhounds Rock Fredericksburg.  Contact me with your choice of collar width and style, and your dog's neck measurement, and I will let you know which fabrics I have available.  If you are with a non-profit organization and would like a collar donation for an upcoming event, I will be happy to see what I can do for you.

New Collars for Greyhounds Rock!

Greyhounds Rock Fredericksburg is the non-profit that friends and I have that raises money for canine cancer research and support.  GRF has a booth at the Fredericksburg Pet Expo this weekend, and our inventory of martingale collars was looking rather skimpy.  I took some time on Monday to go through my stock of donated designer fabric samples and start the process of turning some of them into collars.

Maggie was helping.

I worked at the sewing machine for a while in the afternoon on Tuesday and Wednesday, and this is some of the result of my effort ... I made twenty-five new collars (only 21 of them were finished when I laid them out and took this photo.)

These collars are one and a half inches wide and they are adjustable from twelve to eighteen inches around.  They are ideal for medium-sized dogs ... my greyhounds had a whole wardrobe of them, and 45-pound Ruby wears one whenever we are out.  We sell these for $20 each, and every penny of the purchase price is donated to Greyhounds Rock Fredericksburg.  (Do you see one you like and can't make it to the Expo in person?  We take PayPal, and shipping is only $3 ... hint, hint.)

With this out of the way, I'm free to work outside in the garden today.  Nothing makes me much happier.  (I will show you what I'm working on soon.)

Meanwhile, Back in the Sewing Room ....

Outdoor work in the garden has come to a halt for now, because it has rained at some point during the day for nine of the last ten days.  For the past three days, we have had periods of fairly steady showers and the place is thoroughly saturated.  (For those of you who desperately need rain, please accept my apologies.)  Since I can't plant roses while the ground is like this, I have been keeping myself occupied doing other things. 
 
Yesterday's project was to make a pile of martingale dog collars for the Greyhounds Rock Fredericksburg booth at the Heritage Festival in downtown Fredericksburg on July 4th. 

Those of you who are connected with me on FB saw this photo when I posted it yesterday afternoon.

When I started making collars years ago, I only made them one-and-a-half-inches wide and greyhound size.  Martingale collars, at that time, were mostly used for greyhounds and other sighthounds, so it made sense to cater to that market.  Since then, owners of other dog breeds have learned about the safety provided by a martingale's limited slip choke loop ... and that it doesn't have to cost a fortune to have a whole wardrobe of colorful collars for your dog.

These are some of the collars that my Daniel wore.  The one in front was my favorite!

To feed this new interest in martingales, I have added a smaller-size to our inventory.  As the photo says, these collars are 1" wide, and they are slightly shorter than the original size ... think of this as a Medium.
 
I use donated discontinued upholstery fabric samples to make my collars.  The samples are small, and I am only able to get two, three, or (at the most) four collars from one piece of fabric.  The benefit of this is that you're not going to see your dog's collar on every other dog at the dog park.  The downside is that once a pattern is sold out, it's gone ... get 'em while you can, because you may be disappointed when your favorite isn't there when you come back to the booth.

Anyway ... as I looked at the new collars, I realized that there was nothing there for the girliest of pups.  There is the brown rose chintz one, and the lime green one has polka dots on the lining, but something was definitely missing.  I dug through my fabric stash and I came up with this:

Pink houndstooth!  Such a classic pattern, small scale to compliment a more petite collar, and oh-so feminine.  It was hard for me to put all four of these collars in the pile for the booth ... one of them would look SO good on Ruby. 

If you are local and plan to come to the Heritage Festival, please stop by the GRF booth ... I will be working the afternoon/closing shift.  If you can't make it to see us in person and you are interested in one of these collars, let me know and I will pull it from inventory and sent you a PayPal invoice.  Or, if you have an idea for a custom collar, I would love to work with you ... I once made collars for a woman so her two dogs would match the couch in her office.

I donate my time and all supplies to make these collars, and every $ of the purchase price is donated to Greyhounds Rock Fredericksburg ... to support canine cancer research that benefits ALL breeds of dogs, not just greyhounds.  This is a cause that is close to my heart, since it was cancer that took my Daniel in May (and Emma in 2011). 

I love this photo of Daniel and me!!

It is appropriate that I post this today, because it is a special day to celebrate.  Today is the three-year anniversary of my dear friends Kim and Andy's dog TJ's osteosarcoma diagnosis and surgery to amputate his front leg.  Three years survival is a miracle for this horrible disease, and TJ has thrived as a Tripawd ... continuing to work as an active Therapy Dog in hospitals, schools, and mentoring other Therapy Dogs.

Happy Ampuversary, TJ!!

Checking In

I realized earlier today that it's been a while since I wrote anything here.  It's not that I have less to say ... quite the opposite, actually.  There is lots to tell you about, with our Greyhounds Rock Fredericksburg fundraiser gathering next month, and stuff happening around the house ... I just haven't had as much time as usual to be on the computer.

My last two days have been spent cutting and sewing martingale collars to restock the Greyhounds Rock booth for two shows we are doing this weekend.  Working two shows on the same day means that we have to split our stock, and I have to make more collars than I usually do. 

Alice was with me for company for a while as I worked.

 

I'm still not finished.  Though I wanted to do other things tomorrow, I will spend at least half of the day continuing to sew. 

Each collar we sell is $20 more donated to the cause ... with the goal to one day find effective treatments (and eventually a cure) for canine cancer ... this keeps me motivated.

For those of you who are local, you can find Greyhounds Rock at Fredericksburg's Downtown Dog Fair on Saturday, and at the Fredericksburg Wine Festival on Saturday and Sunday.

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Edited on Friday morning to add:

Ms. Alice got a bit too involved with the process of cutting strips of iron-on adhesive this morning.  She swished her plume of a tail across the path of my rotary cutter ... lost a puff of tail fur in the encounter.  I shooed her down off the table after this.

Anyway ... I have to back to sewing now.

Making Collars and Contributing to the Cause

In my not-so-abundant spare time, I sew collars ... lots of collars ... collars that adorn the throats of dogs throughout the country ... collars that support Greyhounds Rock Fredericksburg, with the goal to one day find effective treatments (and hopefully a cure one day) for canine cancer. 

It's time for me to take this enterprise to a wider audience, which means setting up an online store through Etsy.  To do this, I had to have great photos of my collars ... and no one I know does better photos than my friend Kat, from Low Tide High Style.  Last week, I mailed her a box of collars to photograph, and she sent back the most unbelieveably beautiful images.  Oh, the wonderful things that she can do with a camera!!

I learned to sew when I was ten years old, on an old White, straight-stitch sewing machine that once belonged to my great-grandmother.  I still have this machine, in its walnut stand, and I use it as a table in our master bedroom.  I moved up to a fabulous Kenmore machine that my husband bought for me shortly after we got married ... and it is the one I still use today, 30+ years later.

My collars are mostly made from designer fabric samples, gathered from various sources.  These fabrics are high quality and very durable ... and the colors are always beautiful.  My favorite fabrics to work with are tapestries, damasks, and linen and linen blends. 

The fabric samples I use are small, and I can usually only make two or three collars from each.  This means that my customers won't find their collar on every dog at the greyhound gathering or dog park, like happens with so many other collar makers.  It also keeps the process interesting for me, since I'm not making the same thing over and over and over.

To make these collars, first I cut the fabric into strips ...

... and I sew on the lining.  To make the process go faster, I usually sew the strips one after another without cutting the thread.  I end up with a huge heap of strips behind the sewing machine, then I cut them apart and iron them.  While I'm sewing, I can usually count on having at least one of the cats sitting in the middle of what I'm doing.  This time it was Amy, taking a quick bath.

Dorothy was sitting behind the machine for a while, watching the needle go up and down.

.... and Alice hops into my chair whenever I get up.

Now the fabric blanks are ready to get their hardware and become collars.

All done!

These stylish, colorful collars aren't just for greyhounds!  Any breed of dog whose head is smaller than their neck (like Great Danes, Collies, Poodles, Shepherds, and many other breeds) can benefit from wearing these comfortable, secure collars. Recently, I sold a collar to the owner of an English Bulldog!! 

When we sell these collars at our booth at events, and in the Etsy store as soon as I get it up and running, 100% of the purchase price is donated to Greyhounds Rock Fredericksburg.  (I donate my time and all materials.)  My hope is that each collar I sell will  bring us that much closer to the day when fewer of our beloved canine companions are lost to cancer. 

THIS is my dream, and you can help.  I should have the Etsy store up some time next week ... it's a lot more work to get it started than I thought it would be.  In the meantime, if you see a collar here that you like, or have any questions, please send me an EMAIL and I will give you the details.

Thank you, Kat, for helping me get this started.  I know our Etsy store will be a success ... and a large part of the success will be because of your beautiful images!

Watch this space for news about our annual 'Take a Bite Out of Cancer' event, held in Fredericksburg, Virginia, November 12-13, 2011.  We have two BIG NAME guests in the works, and I can't wait to tell you all about them!!

'Greyhounds Rock Fredericksburg' is a 501 (c) (3) registered charity.

For more information, visit our WEB SITE.

To help spread the word, I'm linking this post to:
Saturday Nite Special at Funky Junk Interiors
Show and Share at Just a Girl