Welcome to the Neighborhood!

Looks who's moved into the neighborhood... Bigfoot!

Delia, this is Bigfoot.

Rumor has it, he's been scouting the area since Christmas (ahem) and it looks like he finally decided on a spot on our property! Eep!

Bigfoot, this is Delia.

He's set up his lair about halfway between the house and the road among the spring wildflowers.

Take Cover, Chair!

Once I got going with all the other projects in the guest room, I decided I really didn't want to live with the 1980s dusty blue upholstery on this chair. The chair is perfectly serviceable otherwise and not without its charms, but the upholstery is just too not-right.

I don't have the skills to truly reupholster it and I'm committed to cheapskate-ing this guest room update project to the bitter end... hence, the quick-n-dirty slipcover.

I scoured the small selection of upholstery fabric at JoAnn which is the only place I know of to buy upholstery fabric around here and came up with this as the least offensive of the cheap options. Only later did I realize the herringbone texture echoes the the pattern on the window shade fabric which is also the fabric used on the back of the duvet set. So there!

That's right, in order to get enough fabric to make both window shades from the fabric I had already, I had to orient the herringbone sideways! What's the world coming to?

This just needed to be quick, easy, and done.*

Although I steam pressed that crease out most of the way, it's obviously still there. Hopefully it will just kind of diminish over time. As it faces the wall most of the time and is a clean crease rather than a messy wrinkle, I'm not going to worry about it.

I got to use some of these great buttons that were a gift from my friend, Tiffany, over at Fizzy Party.

On my last post - Loads of Fun Laundry Room - I added a Real ________ Room Situation photo at the end so I wanted to do that here, too. But first a reminder of the recent work I've completed in the guest room.

 And now for the Real Guest Room Situation (RGRS) ...

Apologies for the blurriness. One has to act quickly with photographing Delia as she doesn't have time for such nonsense and will take measures to avoid the camera.

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For this part of the guest room update project all I needed to purchase was 2 yards of fabric. 

    OUT OF POCKET COSTS:

      $  7.98 - clearance upholstery fabric
      

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*In the interest of full disclosure: I am not quick; I spent about five hours making this, not including sourcing materials. It wasn't hard-hard, but it did take some time planning in order to not waste materials or have a bunch of weird seams. I have no amendments to "done," because it is. Done, I mean.

Making the Most of Icy Weather

NOTICE: I don't know why the body text is highlighted. Well, I have an idea why, but my attempt to fix it failed and I don't want to put any more work into it, so I guess we can all just be glad that this post is mostly photos of a dog in her funny outfit and focus on that.

When life hands you lemons in the form of an ice rink driveway, you make lemonade in the form of a figure skater outfit for your dog! And my "you" and I mean "me/I."

I dug through all my fabrics & trims bins looking for remnants and leftovers to cobble this majestic outfit together and came up with a variety of golden treasures!

Ruffles!

Sequins!

Please note the flutter sleeves.

The whole thing is lined with polar fleece remnants.

Go Home, Mother Nature. You're Drunk. a.k.a. Sometimes It Snows In May

May 17, 2017

Wore snow boots that day.

View from the top of the deck stairs.

The balsams and probably some arnica.

Our LILACS! I sure hope we don't lose all the blossoms. Sigh.

Tulips aren't supposed to have snow!

Will we get any apples this year?

Oh, little lupine! Stay strong!

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds... because the squirrels were still raising hell.

We both wore flip flops last week.

D-easter Egg Hunt!

Delia had her first egg hunt! That's right, I am one of those dog people and I embrace it. 

It was just one six-pack of plastic eggs that happen to have little air holes in them, each with a small aromatic treat or two. 

Delia knew that there were treats in that bag and she watched me "hide" them from the deck.

And they weren't hidden very thoroughly for the most part.

These are simply the three most photogenic of the six.

After dispersing them around the yard, her papa let her off the deck and joined us for The Hunt! 

She did a pretty good job once she realized that the treats were no longer in the bag, but her having watched me hide them didn't seem to effect her efficacy, if you know what I mean.

This was the hardest one for her to find and she went around and around before we pointed it out to her. It was the only one we helped her with and also the only one hidden above her head, so that probably had a lot to do with it.

She was so gentle with them, too! The first four she just poked with her snootle until one of us opened it up for her and gave her the treats. The last two she did pick up in her mouth, but very gently and offered them to one of us immediately.

I hope to make this a tradition... it was so dang cute!

THANKS EASTER BUNNY! [brock! brock!]

I feel drained.

Waste water-wise, we're back in business!

Looks like the kitchen sink might be "permanently fixed"! I use quotations, because as we all know true permanency is a myth. Thanks, Nick!

As inconvenient it is to use the teensy upstairs shower, it's way more inconvenient to wash dishes in the bathroom sink. Not just in terms of the dishwasher being out of service, but because the faucet and the small sink make it hard to wash large things and the counter in there seems ridiculously low, making washing more than just a few dishes kind of hard on our backs. Even Nick was unable to work loose the drain stopper in the overflow pipe on the tub. But he did seem to narrow the location of the clog down to the P-trap rather than a mass caught up on the stopper. Next stop: a moderate volume of chemical drain cleaner. Ugh.

I found one that is specifically for hair clogs, or claims to be, bu Liquid Plumber. It seemed safe to assume that hair was the primary culprit with the shower drain, right? Well, even though I let it sit about twice as long as I was supposed to, because I got caught up in Delia's daily fetch session and a few other tasks.

Speaking of Delia's fetch session... we know spring is in the air because she's asking for a drink from the well head mid-session. It was a balmy 45F when I got this shot.

Dogter Pitter's Medicine Show COSPUP!

I sent E a few of the better shots, he tweeted one, his publisher retweeted it and that tweet showed up on the Angry Robot Books' website.
If you click on the photo, you should be able better read the text.

... and then I got the idea to use leftover materials from Eric's Dr Potter cosplay suit to make a Dogter Potter suit for Delia! I made a pattern from the red plaid jacket I bought that she wears regularly for below-freezing fetch sessions, then made a prototype from other remnants in my fabric stash.

The prototype turned out so well, I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't have enough of a cuter flannel in my stash to have made it with.

Once I figured it was close enough, I dug into the Dr Potter stash and got to work! And about 10 work-hours later I had a pretty good dog-version of The Suit!

Same suit! Same expression! Same beard!

HER FACE! She's knows when business is serious, you guys!

A fetch session reward for being such a good model gave an opportunity for a good show of the side and back of the "suit"!

Annnnd remember how I mentioned my slight obsession with documenting the details of my projects? Well, here are the photos of some of the details of this project, taken in various poor lighting conditions, minus the pesky model. YOU'RE WELCOME.

I'm not going to lie, my original plan was A LOT less complicated, but C'MON what kind of fool is going to make a less complicated dog outfit that will never be seen anywhere but on the internet? Oh.

The back with the button details to match the button details on Eric's jacket! ACK!

Buttons, buttons, buttons! They aren't functional, but there were entirely necessary. For real.

My favorite overboard detail might be the lapel and collar of the "jacket"! It slays me! And the lapel required a good bit of hand sewing which I think deserves extra credit and should be noted in my permanent file.

Delia was a real good sport about all this! Historically, she's not much for outfits and disguises, but I think having associated her red plaid coat with her favorite fetch sessions has helped her turn the corner on this one. If it's much below freezing a jacket extends her tolerance for outside exercise by up to 80%! If it's 20 degrees or lower we'll use Musher's Secret on her feet and she will usually be totally up for her usual 25 minutes of exercise (+ 10-12 minutes more later in the day). She can call it at any time by simply heading to the door. She ended up wearing her Dr Potter suit for a few hours in the house after the photo shoot and fetch reward and was totally un-bothered by it. I admit that I was hoping to get a belly shot of her sleeping with her paws in the air, but that didn't happen. Yet.

As satisfying and challenging as the other projects were, particularly Eric's Dr Alexander Potter suit, this might be my favorite project I have made in a quite a long time. It just gives me giggle fits every time I see or think about it! Thus, I have shared it all over the place. LOOK AT MY DOG IN HER OUTFIT! LOOK AT HER!

Dr Potter's Medicine Show COSPLAY

Obviously, I have shared and shared (and yeah, bragged a bit) of the fun things I've gotten to make as my little contribution to helping promote Eric's book. The biggest thing I made was A SUIT! Like a three-piece suit, you guys! I bought a McCall's pattern, lots of fabric, and spent a good 60-70 hours on this and I am pretty pleased with how it turned out. THANKFULLY, Eric was pretty much model size on this, because one thing I am not is a tailor and I have almost no alteration or fitting skills.

Hey look! Bare ground! This was taken when our moms were here for Thanksgiving... before the snow!

Eric has been a terribly good sport about modeling.

The unaltered, real deal!

Admittedly, I'm a bit obsessive about documenting the details of projects (as I am sure people who follow along have noticed) so here are some detail shot of the suit minus the pesky model. Ahem. I made the jacket, pants, and vest. We bought the shirt (H&M), braces (suspenderstore.com), hat (Goodwill at Halloween), shoes (TJ Maxx), and Eric had the socks and walking stick (a 40th birthday gift) already.

These shell buttons came from the 4 or 5 generation button box and might well be from the 1870s! I did have to find new clips for the back.

We got so lucky to find an inexpensive white shirt with the appropriate style collar! It would've been much more costly to make it and taken just that much more time. Suspenders are elastic and less "authentic" than most of the other pieces, but the cost difference easily justified the compromise. And I couldn't have made them for less, either.

Vent and button detail on the back of the jacket.

This jacket is made from about 50 pieces of fabric and interfacing. What with the pockets, lining, etc. it really added up. Oh, and it has 12 or 13 buttons, too!

Wooden buttons purchased online from MJTrim.com.

Special thanks to our neighbors and friends who turned out in the cold & snow to make this photo shoot even possible and all the work of making all the things come to a pretty great end! We certainly could not have pulled it off with out Neighbor Bob's fantastic Western town, knowledge, props, and photography skills! Not to mention everyone who showed up with costumes, props and with GREAT and generous-of-spirit attitudes! And for Coworker Randi's time and skills turning digital photos into daguerreotypes! Without all of them, the suit wouldn't have mattered one bit.