The best dog bed in the world

A moment of insanity is the only explanation for me looking at a fat quarter pack of Anna Maria Horner fabric and thinking they would make a great dog bed. The project started out simple. I saw these neat dog beds online that were basically like a doggie duvet that you filled with old towels and clothes. Brilliant! I thought I'd piece a simple quilt top, then make it into essentially a giant pillow. Easy peasy, right?

Next thing I know there's piping, fancy blocks and a quilted bottom. That would have been enough to keep me busy into the far future without the technical problem of a sewing machine no longer interested in proper or even inconsistently bad tension. Then came the hindsight is 20/20 part. After many an adjustment by my mom, we forged ahead with the wonky machine. Then I forged ahead with ripping out all the quilting because it just wasn't good enough. So much ripping. I did find a nifty trick because I sure had a lot of practice.

With a borrowed sewing machine, I finished the quilt top. And I have to say it looks pretty good. How can you go wrong with that fabric?


Putting it together was another challenge. First starting with my lost shank and foot. Thankfully it was found with the borrowed machine, but not before tearing apart my craft room and crawling around on my hands and knees to peer under cupboards in case the cats got frisky. Even more thankfully, my mom came by to walk me through the entire process. Who am I kidding - I often let her take over. She's so fast! Everything I do is painfully slow and nowhere near as accurate. Maybe in 50 years I'll be a sewing superstar too.


Then I needed to rustle up enough stuff to fill the bed. You can't imagine how much got tossed in there - sheets, blankets, old sweaters and a whole bunch of those long since out of fashion clothes buried at the bottom of drawers. Still I could use a bit more to fill it out.

Here's the spoiled pup taking a tentative sniff of her new bed:


It seems to meet with her approval. I should really hope so considering the huge expense for fabric and supplies and then the hours and hours that went into making it. At least now the gigantic beast finally has a bed she fits on. And look at that elegant face - she needs an equally lovely place to sleep. Plus it's a nice addition to my living room that looks so much better than a plain ol' dog bed.


I wonder where my next crazy idea will take me. Oh right, I still need to make the matching pillow to go against the railing. Crazy, crazy, crazy.

Looong absence

Forever and a day has passed since my last post. I haven't much been in a crafty frame of mind lately. Plus I got distracted by the second two Hunger Games books. But I have been plugging away on a couple things.

I finished a nice Frank Lloyd Wright cross stitch kit from my CFF. Now I have to decide how to finish it off. I'm thinking wall hanging. I got started on my first needle point kit - a pillow that looks like a Klimt painting with rich colours and gold in geometric and swirling lines. It will be lovely.

Never too late

Yesterday I was chatting with a friend about people who send out with their holiday greetings a summary of the past year in their life. I guess that took a while to foment in my brain cuz suddenly today I started thinking about all the noteworthy moments for me in 2011. And there were some big things, both glad and sad, but definitely all memorable.

In January I moved into my new home. This is already the third home I've owned, but this felt like the real deal because it's a single house. It took a while to finally get here, starting with a condo apartment, where I stayed only about a year after a nasty legal battle over my dog, and then a townhouse, which I thought of as temporary but stayed for seven years. Now finally I've made it to a honest to goodness house and home that truly makes me proud. This will sound super dorky, but I still get a kick out of walking all the way around my house - and four walls that are all my own! Silly, I know.

This December, I finally finished my ambitious project of painting every room in my new house. I got it done just under the wire of my self-imposed one-year deadline. Phew! I had to hire someone to do the two-storey entryway, but otherwise every room was painted by my aching hands. Of course, being me, there were many hilarious/disastrous moments of clumsiness - the best probably when I stepped into the paint tray and had to hop on one foot to the sink.

In May, I said goodbye to my sweet dog Marie. The decision had to be made suddenly, which was difficult at the time but in a way a blessing because she could go while still happy and feeling relatively well. Often we hold on longer than we should for ourselves, not our pet.

Then in August I brought home Alexi, a three-year-old Borzoi. In many ways she is so much like Marie - both incredibly sweet and calm. But she's also goofy and loves to play. This is the first dog I've had that will fetch and sit on her own playing with toys. Greyhounds are far too dignified for such doggy behaviour. My only teeny issue with Alexi is all the freaking hair. I simply was not prepared. How is she not bald by now!?

In October I had an amazing three-week trip to Italy with my parents. We spent two glorious weeks in Tuscany, exploring the countryside and all the old stone towns, and a week in Rome seeing all the storied sights and amazing galleries. Italy is also where I learned to drive a standard. I'm not gonna lie - the first few days were stressful and at times embarrassing. Driving in a foreign country with weird signs, lots of roundabouts and notoriously aggressive drivers is a challenge all on its own. But now I miss driving a standard. I would have gladly missed the day I had to stop for a light on a steep hill in Siena and stalled the car numerous times before finally ditching the driver's seat for my mom to take over. Thankfully after a while the cars behind me stopped honking. I'm sure they had some choice Italian expressions for the stupid tourist who can't drive a standard.

This past year I also really got into sewing. I think it's taken over as my craft of choice. I've done lots of relatively projects - bags, mug rugs and small quilts. Actually I finished my first quilt - a bright summery table cloth - and I felt pretty accomplished, even if it was small. This year I want to launch into bigger projects that take a little more dedication than a couple hours and stretch my skills a bit more. But first placemats and a dog bed. Related to my new-found love of sewing, I started building with great dedication a fabric stash this past year. I probably have enough now to get me through this year!

I'm not sure yet what this coming year will hold for me. Except I do have a trip to New York planned with my CFF Tara to go to the Renegade Craft Fair. We went together a couple years ago in Chicago and had a great time. That's also when she introduced me to the mouth-watering yet odd taste combination of Chicago mix popcorn, which I crave still. I went back to Chicago the next year with my mom, only ever so slightly motivated by getting another popcorn fix at the Pier. I hope another trip or two will also pop up, which is quite possible since I'm not generally a plan-ahead sorta person.

I invite you to think about all you have to celebrate and remember from 2011 as well, and start thinking about adventures for 2012.

Take two

You'd think after making a bunch of these drawstring bags I could do them with my eyes closed. I was so proud of the seam I managed to close the bottom lining - so straight and so close to the edge. Then I went to put in the drawstrings when I discovered I missed one key step - leaving two spots open in the sides for the drawstrings. Unbelievable. It broke my heart to pull out the lovely seam, turn it inside out and rip open slots on the sides. Then I really couldn't believe it when I went to put drawstrings in one bag only to find I forgot when I stitched around one of the openings to rip out the stitches between! Again I opened the bottom of the lining, but oh boy was that seam perfect. I guess the third time is the charm. Stupid, stupid, stupid.


The colour in the back is my newly painted bathroom wall. It's a little taste of autumn - my favourite season.

Arts and crafts time

Finally all the rooms in my house are painted! I finished the job this weekend with the main bathroom. (You'll get a peak at the colour - a rich rusty red-orange called Fallen Leaves - in the next post.)

I've also been doing a couple small projects around the house. I bought this bicycle key rack a while ago from an etsy shop, but it sat around for a while before I got around to my plan. I picked up a frame, took out the glass and wrapped fabric around the back. Then I nailed the frame and key rack on the wall. I think it looks a bit more finished than just hanging up the rack, and it keeps the keys from marking up the wall.


When I painted my living room a robin's egg blue, two groupings of paintings disappeared into the wall because the colours were far too similar. I came up with these two solutions and I think they turned out pretty well. Certainly you can't miss the pictures now!

I outlined a geometric shape with tape, then painted with this awesome green called Appletini. I had a moment of hesitation before the first brush stroke, but I love it.


I love the odd characters on these three paintings. Because they're small, I figured I could make them a bit more prominent by putting them inside a larger frame. I painted the frame (a cheap one I found at Michaels after several unsuccessful trips to thrift shops) with the pink from my craft room and behind painted the wall white. Now the small pieces are part of a bigger piece of art.


It's gonna be weird not having a painting project to do, but I'm sure I'll find plenty of crafting to fill my time.

Pseudo stockings

Stockings are a big part of my family's Christmas eve tradition, even though we're all now adults. My parents look after my sister's and my stockings and we stuff theirs.

A new part of the stocking tradition is putting all the gifts in something reusable - driven in part by the fact very little fits in the small crocheted stockings from our childhood. Lately my mom sews us pillow cases to fill with goodies. This year I decided to make my parents big drawstring bags that can later serve as handy travel bags. Travel is so much more civilized with nice fabric bags rather than the usual plastic one! My mom was especially grateful for the bags when on a recent trip she needed to pull something out of her overweight luggage. Too bad what she grabbed quickly was the bag of dirty laundry. That could have been all sorts of embarrassing.


I also whipped up a drawstring pouch (the smaller yellow one in the front) for my mom to use for knitting projects. I think that puts me up to a total of making five so far, with a couple more planned to hold Christmas presents.

Santa's on the way

I've been working like a Christmas elf in my craft room to sew presents for friends and family. These drawstring pouches were sewn with specially chosen fabric for each friend - including a certain friend with a fondness for squirrels. Amazingly my crafty friend (CFF) Tara and I made pouches with the exact same orange and blue for the same person. Such crafting serendipity!


These zippered pouches accompanied the drawstring bags. Now there are just a few scraps of my Italian sheep fabric left. I am still surprised that sewing the zippers went smoothly, and involved no swearing whatsoever. Progress!


Like with just about every crafting endeavour, I did run out of time so one friend is holding an IOU for a sheep pouch. Hmm . . . I should really stop blogging and get sewing.

A shout out to my crafty and wonderful friends who gave me so many great presents, including awesome mitts in my favourite teal inspired by my secret movie soft spot (anyone else on Team Jacob?), a zippered pouch made with lovely and confusing fabric (is that a sheep? deer? or some crazy cute sheep-deer hybrid?) and a fabric-covered notebook to record crafting inspiration, ideas and shopping lists.

For those who are also abashed Twihards, you may recognize this building and door. While I was in Italy this fall I visited Montepulciano, aka Volterra. I'm the teeny speck in front - about as close as I like to get for a photo. The town is beautiful in its own right, but I must admit I was excited to follow the special New Moon map marking all the shooting spots. Embarrassing, I know.