Puppy and Cat Monday

We had a bit of fun with the dog on Friday night after a few beers... is this classed as pet abuse?

In the interest of keeping things fair at home - i have also included the other pet, Shadow. She is a bit shy (or hiding so we don't put socks on her too!)


Hope everyone is having a wonderful day!

Puppy Monday

My Fortnightly dose of Doggy Deliciousness (yep.. thats my own word). Bella is growing up so fast, she is such a sweety.

She had her first trip to the sea on Sunday.

Sand is REALLY fun to dig in apparently.

Mum!! I'm all sandy!

Some Bits and Pieces

Finally how exciting, Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross has arrived!! So many lovely things to sew.

I had a quick trip the the Op Shop and found some fab fabrics to use.

I bought 3 metres of this vinrtage flowery goodness for $1, and i am going to make some PJs out of it so i stop having to steal my husbands undies to wear to bed (they are comfortale!).

I bought 2 metres of a stripey crepe fabric for $1 that i am going to try and make the sundress out of, I will probably shorten it to a top though. For some reason if I wear dress like that with out shapeing at the waist I end up looking like I am wearing a sack.

I also got some pink cordoury and some cute bunny fabric too. I might try and make the Flower Girl dress out of this, not sure yet.
I also purchase some beautiful batik style fabric as well, to create my art for the swap at 6 o'clock Stitch, which is a Spring time swap . I need to create something 8" x 10", that includes Yellow and Red. I am going to try and make a quilted sunrise scene with hills and water. Should be interesting!


Curly Pops your package is on the way!!
and Bella and I graduated from Puppy School!! Whoot!
Stay Tuned for the results!

Dog Bed Detail

Just thought i would show you a little bit of the detail on Bella's dog bed. I used the Seer Sucker Material i talked about previously and did a little experiment in Free Motion Quilting.
So i just kinda did little loopy things (thats the techinical term) roughly over the flowers. It was fun but quite hard moving the fabric around, i can't imagine doing it on a huge quilt!
Oh Fransson! has written a very good tutorial on it here.
Basically you just whack on a darning foot, they usually look like this.

And you drop your feed dogs (not your bag of Puppy Supercoat, but the little teeth on the bottom plate of your sewing machine that pull your fabric along) and then just sew to your hearts content. Coz you have your feed dogs down you actually just move your fabric around underneath the needle yourself.

Some people actually use this process to create intricate free-motion sewing artwork, I reckon if you were acurate enoughyou could even use a embroidery hoop and do some detailed design like these pretty brids on Urban Threads.com.
So there you go -

Seersucker Fabric and One Brown Quilt Cover from an Op Shop = $5

Free Motion Sewing Adventure = $0

One Happy Puppy = Priceless
What have you tried out for the first time lately?

Puppy Monday - A Day in the Life of Bella the Labrador

Hi, My name's Bella, I'm a 11 week old black labrador.
My favourite thing to do is to use my big, droopy, sad eyes to blackmail my mum into giving me big cuddles and kisses.
I had a big day today, I spent lots of time in the garden.
I helped rack the garden.
It was lots of fun.But i always need to make sure i spend some time looking cute and forlorn.
I also helped dig holes for my new chew toys/the new vegies for the garden.But after a big day i was getting sleepy, so i asked Mum if she would finally finish my dog bed.I had a quick nap in the sewing machine cover while she finished.
It was perfect, i have such a clever Mummy, (Although i did notice the very rough stitching around the edges and the fact that she cut the bottom fabric off-centre).Maybe while i take a nap my Mum will vaccuum the rug.I hope you had a good day too, Good Night!

Monday - Puppy Day

In an effort to stop me from posting pics of my new dog everyday i have now assigned Monday as my Puppy Day. So here is Bella on the weekend enjoying the long grass, with a happy, cheeky grin on her face..
I'm so in love! We start Puppy Training on Wednesday.

Bella the Puppy

I have had a few requests for some more pictures! So here you go....


This is her favourite sleeping position.

Bella is getting along with my cat Shadow. From the word go Shadow let Bella know that she was the master/evil overlord of the house. Now Shadow likes to tempt Bella into a frenzy with little meows, slow strolls past when Bella is busy and little tail wags.
She is such a wonderful dog, likes to get up to mischief and like all Labradors she likes to test everything to see what it feels like to chew. Including the metal in the dishwasher, my bra, speaker wires, a coat hanger, one of the ladies on the Labrador forum said that her dog ate through two walls - from one room to the next! So i am constantly keeping an eye on her to make sure she isn't chewing anything.
She is just so cute and i wish i could set a webcam up so i could watch her at work.

I came up with the name after after a blog friend Heather , who has a daughter called Isabel and is a massive fan of Twilight, suggested it. I love it, it is shortened to "Bell" alot, which is too cute too.

That's it for your daily dose of dog!

Something to make you smile

I was just using my "Stumble Upon" toolbar to find some new stuff to show you guys and i just found this blog that has pictures of unusual relationships wof animals (it's completely clean i promise!)
Its called Lets Be Friends, and i just has the coolest pictures of strange animal who are friends.
Like this cat and monkey,
and dog and cat.. too cute. I hope my new puppy and my existing cat can be friends, but more than likely they will be arch enemies. Anyone have any tips on helping dogs and cats be friends?

Counting the Days

You haven't heard from me in a while!

Some bad news last week, we found out that my Father-in-Law has prostate cancer. So i didn't post last week, but i am back now and i only have 4 sleeps till i go to Thailand! We are pretty sure we are also going to visit my father-in-law who lives in Singapore on the way back too. so it will be good to see how he is going.

On Saturday I got to go and see my puppy, Bella, who is now 3 weeks old. So cute, she lost all the hair on her legs and belly from the birth (something about a stressful birth and the vet putting her on a heat pad and Meconium drying on her fur and making it fall out) but it's growing back, but at the moment it is grey, so she looks like a little gorilla!

Here is Bella and her mum Chyna, she has such a beautiful black coat.


and here is Bella, marching along with her grey belly! Can't wait to get her...
I haven't been creating much, going to have a break until i get back from Thailand, though i have converted my friend Jo to a sewing nut, so this week and i am hoping to do some posts on good projects for beginner sewers, so if you have any links or ideas, just leave a comment.

The puppy is born!

Our puppy has been born, he was born last friday, the only puppy in the litter, poor little chicky. We had our name down for a black boy in this litter, but only a girl popped out (which is just fine by me! I wanted a girl anyway) but because that i ended up with a girl, Husband thinks he gets to pick the name, Norma was his first suggestion, just to annoy me. I wanted MaaLee (which is Thai for flower).

We are a bit concerned about her not being able to learn the usual things from her litter mates like not biting and social skills, but we will have her straigth into puppy school at 8 weeks and she has some puppy from a previous litter at the breeders house too, so she will be able to socialise with them too. Does anyone out there have any experience with single puppy litters? Any name suggestions? (other than Norma!).