Puppy Monday

Could Praline be any prettier?

No sooner had I set up this basket for lap quilts did Praline claim it for dog-kind. 

Sorry I missed my Puppy Sunday post, but I'm insanely busy with school. 

I love Spanish, but it's challenging, to put it mildly. 

Cheers!

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: Chuy is a computer assistant

Chuy would prefer to be between All The Hoomans and their computers. See what a tech whiz he is?

Dirndl blouse

Making an ensemble for Oktoberfest from fabrics I had on hand. I love this dotted Swiss handkerchief weight fabric, and this is for the blouse. I don't have a ruffle foot, so I improvised and just tried to be uniform in feeding extra fabric every other stitch. The ruffle alone took an hour just to gather up. It's not perfect, but it's still going to be cute, I think!

The sleeves will go on tomorrow and I'll finish it probably tomorrow night. :)

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: drowsy babushka pup

Mochi loves to burrow, especially near bedtime. :)

Well, that's done. Again. For now.

My tires wore out so quickly it was astonishing. I had a nice set of Michelins with 90,000 mike warranty, and barely eked out 47,000 on them. The new set is on now. Going for alignment this week, and hopefully I can see a few more miles on this bunch. 

On the penultimate (I hope) triple digit day of the year...

...I have to say that if there's an up-side to living in a ridiculously hot place, it's that I can put an entire basket of clothes on the line to dry at 6PM, and they'll be dry and toasty before the sun goes down. I love the smell of line-dried textiles, and I also love saving electricity. It gets me out of the house some days when I'd rather not, perhaps, and that's good, too. 

It was 102F today, and tomorrow is forecast for 100, but Wednesday is forecast for a positively frigid 90F. 

Fetch me my parka, Jeeves!

As summers go, this one hasn't been brutal, but I will not be sorry to see the back of it. 

How To Study Tennyson:

Staggering.

They need to send the fight-abled people among the refugees back home to Syria with weapons so they can resolve the problem of extremists in their homeland. 

The worst falls on the children. Strife was ever thus. For all the complications and mitigating factors, I know I'm not alone in grieving for all the children in places of great conflict. 

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: will nap for cuddles

Chuy just came out from under the covers and pressed up against me, demanding I pet him. Of course, I could not refuse. :)

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: Mochi's overbite

Waking up to this sight makes me smile every time. 

A new chapter begins.

My darling niece left for boot camp today.

No longer the sweet little elfling with a nimbus of fuzzy reddish hair atop her head, she is 18 and stands nearly a foot taller than her old auntie now. 

I'll always treasure the times we had our Girlie Days, when I babysat her and we'd make a list at breakfast of all the fun things we would do that day. We explored world cuisines and she achieved proficiency with chopsticks at the ripe old age of three. We fed a lot of ducks. A lot. 

Now she's off in the world to plan her own lists of grand adventures. I hope she has much health and happiness, and that the world shows her all the best it has to offer. After all, my family is now sharing with the world the very best we have to offer, and it should respond in kind. 

Be safe and happy, dearest Chloe. You'll always be my Little Lamb. <3

...and it's not even 9:00 AM yet. :)

I have 4 days until school starts, and they must be productive. One little nagging task I've been putting off is taking a puppy-shredded pillow case and cobbling together a smaller case from the remnants. I have a little barley hull pillow I sleep with that needs a smaller case, but I only have two. This project took less than 30 minutes, and I just used the tan thread in me bobbin. 

One of the rectangles was slightly larger, so I bloused in pleats at the center of the top, and also on one side so the ends met properly. This also accommodates some pouf to the pillow. 

I used the French seam technique so all raw edges are contained inside and none are exposed, which will hopefully result in enhanced longevity for the case. The rest of the fabric is for the scraps for future quilty/embellishment projects. This fabric is gorgeous. I sewed slowly to make edges stay in line, but I did not press or use pins, both of which would have resulted in cleaner, more knife-edge lines, but I'm happy- this feels nice, and is therefore good enough for sweet dreams. 

I took the final photo on a regular pillow for scale, and Chuy suggested the tableau would be more fetching with a bit of beefcake thrown in. 

Quite!

True:

I concur with these thoughts, as it is unproductive to reflect hurtful behaviors, but I would go one further: remove yourself from the presence of vicious people. You do them no service by being their whipping boy, and you are wasting your good humor on people who do not value your precious time and attention. 

Self portrait at Gage Hotel gardens in Marathon

I've had a grand time here. This trip has been most restorative. :)