Cole's resolutions

Hi Cole here. The temperature may be warm but Christmas came and went and I'm enjoying lots of time with my peeps (servants). Why, look at the lovely new pillowcase Momma made for me! I decided we all needed to take a walk, and where we would go. While driving by one day I spied this guy...

hanging around at my friend Maria's house. I asked where the hooves were that I requested. "Are you lookin' at ME?" I asked. What a stiff! He had no answers for me, so I checked out his little friend...

Pinky, and she had nothing to add... guess the hooves go on the list for next Christmas.

Huh?!? What was that?? Later gator's

Tell Miss Maria hi for me, wish her happy new year and tell her mom I'll be back later to pet her. Gotta go!

Leave my mark on the world!
There, my girl friend Noel will want to read that peemail later. On the walk I met Gimli...

a 7 month old Frenchie. OMD, Momma can I have one? So cute! Check out that fancy wool sweater! Ha!
He is just a little guy and when we did the meeting dance, he walked right under me. My sight she is no like she used to be, so I lost track of him under there and looked around!

when he came out I had my chance for a sniff test. Relax, he's one of the good guys!
When we got him I began to think of my New Year's resolutions... I have it pretty good ya'll so there isn't much I want to change. AND I'm an old dog, and you know what they say... heh heh
Still, change can be good, and one must reach for the tallest limbs and all so here goes...
1. Eat better. This means more for my peeps, hey! Stop buying that tasteless kibble and get me some raw meat up in here! I saw what Easy gets to eat! Which leads me to...
2. stop eating paper. Now this can't happen over night. I likes me some tissues clean out of the tissue feeder. They are all fluffy and pull out one at a time giving a fast poodle time to ingest several before the peeps get in the way. Still, it upsets the momma so I guess I should at least limit them.
3. Work my way back into the good graces of my staff. They no longer trust me out of their sight because of a few Dietary Indiscretions. Okay, there were some dance shoes, some watercolor paintings, some plastic, some toys, well, come to think of it, maybe I should stop now.
4. More walks off leash. I don't think this is gonna happen. I tend to be really good... til I'm not heh heh.
5. More quality naps. Include the Daddy if possible. Maybe write down my dreams.
6. Play more. Daddy needs exercise so I should take him in the back yard more often for a good game of chase me.
7. Pet momma. She says I like Daddy best, and it's just not true. I love her, but she's the one who says no more. Speaking of which...
8. Erase the word "WAIT" from usage. I HATE that word. I get all gung ho, and then hear WAIT! grrrr
I mean I eventually get to do what I want, but have to pause for the staff to do whatever and it's no fun.
9. Be a BIT more obedient. I seem to be losing my hearing on the frequency my momma speaks.... and she seems to think I am less obedient than I used to be. She has to understand I am a full grown, geriatric dog now and I don't need no stinkin leash or to DROP or to COME HERE or to WAIT as much as I used to.
But if it makes her happy I could put it down here. As a GOAL.
10. Go for more car rides in Dad's car, where I can tip my nose out the window and feel the breeze through my naturally curly hair. I mean I ain't gettin' any younger, if not now, when?
(see #8)
That's it, what are you all doing for NYE? Cole

Rainbow poodle

Just because, I thought I would try hand embroidering a poodle.

I googled images and found this image with no attribution. I would credit the artist but cannot find even the image on google again!! Where does stuff go?
I printed it out and enlarged it to 6 inches.
Traced it on some sparkly white fabric with my silver prisma color pencil. Stretched it on a hoop and got ready to play.

This thread is perle cotton from ArtFabric. They hand dye in luscious colors on many weights of thread. This is fairly thick. I save old spools and wrap the hanks of embroidery threads on them to make using them easier.

Can you see the pretty sparkles in the white fabric?
Okay, I feel I've gotten control of outline stitch. I wanted to break into chain stitch as it's pretty with this thread. Or French knots. Now what to do with this??

Black and White Movie-star Flamingos

Roll out the red carpet, the black and white movie star Flamingos are here.
Flo Ziegfeld and Greta Garbo-Mingo ( I do NOT want to be alone) have joined the flock.
(BTW my design wall is white not pink as it appears here)

This is how it starts. Digging through the black and white scraps for teeny little flamingo like pieces.
As always the pattern is from Shirley Liby's sew precise.

How do I choose fabrics?
Thanks for asking, heh heh

It's scientific.

I likes what I likes.

And they should have movement and interest and contrast and be available in a scrap bin.

And I like to place the scrap just so.

Here they are joining the recent flock members. I have no Earthly idea how I will set these.

 I have a flamingo fabric collection, that's right, I know you're shocked. I'll wait while you recover.

Since there is water and sky in each little block, and since each little block was done at my whim so they are all different sizes, this will not be simple.

Of course.

Maybe I'll go around each one with the same fabric to unify them. Maybe there will be a big flamingo in the center. I don't know, I just make the blocks with little thought to the future.

It's like, when a fabric store clerk asks what I am going to do with a fabric while she cuts it.
Well, I hunted and gathered it, I'm going to take it home and clean (wash dry and fold) it, and it's going to join the others.
I'm adopting it.

Black and White dishes to follow, and that teapot, gonna be so cute!
go see other RSC quilts here

Got it done by Christmas, well kind of...

I knew I wanted to make pillow cases for we three for Christmas, and look at that pink poodle fabric I found at Joann's. Hee-hee! OOoo La La! Perfect  for me! And black and white dots! More please.
No really. More please. The workers at Joann's cut to the quarter inch. I hope to leave with the two yards I buy! Well since I prewash and dry, of course it shrunk a lot and I had to finagle all the cases.
Luckily I know how to sew, heh heh.

This is for Drew, our resident guitarist. When I bought it I thought it had guitars on it.
Oh well.
At the store, I looked and looked for companion fabric to make the cuff, but none worked. They were out of white flannel.
 I thought, with such a stash surely I have something to match! Did I ??

No.
It repelled matching. It shook it's flannel head in derision. It said, "you'll find no match mortal"

So I cannibalized the yardage and inserted a piece of white flannel ( I had to piece to make long enough).
We have king sized pillows.
I made it work then turned to my regular stash of dog fabrics to make one for Not Afraid of Color Poodle.

Cole loves a black lab. He has pestered us on every birthday and holiday to buy him a black lab.
I too love a black lab, and had a girl for 10 short years named Chelsea. I miss her so much. Anyway, I thought this would help Cole dream of running with black labs.
Doesn't your dog sleep with a pillow??
I finished his pillow case this evening listening to a book on tape and the rain hitting the window.

We are waiting on the turkey breast for dinner. We made some gingerbread and some pumpkin muffins this morning, some cranberry sauce and some citrus salad traditional in our house. We opened our gifts to each other and Drew played Christmas carols on his guitar from last Christmas! He's improved and learned a lot from last year.

It's raining and getting chilled off a bit.
I sketched or tried to sketch Drew playing the guitar. I'll call it Family, as that's my next prompt.

 Cole played with his three new balls and is done with them. He  broke the squeaker in one already. Luckily a kind blogger told me I can buy new ones at Amazon, so I did and now I just have to repair a few toys.

 Drew asked for a chef's coat for Christmas and he wore it while helping chop vegetables for the pan.

It's been raining for four days now. We can still watch a movie while having a late dinner.
 Soon it will be time to take down the colored lights...

But the really big one in the sky right now, will stay on.

I am starting to write down some of the fabulous connections I made this year. I count you all as blessings.
I almost have next year's word chosen. I will bring along Connections though, as I feel there is more to be learned.

Gotta light? How about quilts?

Oooooo  Flamingo lights, and you know how I love a flamingo!

my tree is adorned with adorable flamingos

We walk in several different neighborhoods. This neighborhood has a lot of fun light displays. I'll show you a few.

 Here's a home with a varied display! Statue of Liberty guards a lighted hot air balloon, the Eiffel Tower, a snowman, Cinderella's carriage, peppermints, and  a Big Red Chicken. What! They also have a giraffe, and these...

 Whee! More flamingos AND a cow. Yessssss!  Where is the Poodle? That would be my perfect display, cows, flamingos, and poodles!

Note the Barbie ornament. I got my first Barbie at about age 5 and she had on this suit and those cool stiletto shoes. Oh how I loved my Barbie collection which grew each Christmas. Eventually she dated Ken in that convertible and had her own house. Modern woman with a wasp waist, doing it all in high heels. 

The modern woman before her was my other love, Betty Boop. This is last year's Christmas quilt, and on the tree is...

 One of many Boop ornaments.
And to keep this quilt related...this is my first very first paper piecing quilt made about 1990. I took a class in Tampa with my best friend. We found it a bit challenging at first but once I got the backwards thing, I fell hard for it! 

I hand quilted it with stars and words and metallic threads. Hand quilted. In the day the only metallic available to me was pretty bumpy and hard to manage. I either combined a metallic with a quilting thread through the eye of the needle, or doubled the metallic. I was determined! I even hand quilted a bed quilt completely with it in the same year.

I am still working on free motion quilting the borders of my kaleidoscope and hope to show you by Christmas post or just after. It will be find to hand sew the binding while watching Miss Fisher's Mysteries on disc. I am also trying to make one last Christmas gifts for my men folk today.
I sewed them wrong yesterday and ripped while watching TV last night. Wish me luck.

looking for Cole's Capers? Scroll down!

Just another Saturday walk in Annapolis

 Yep, just another Saturday Christmas season walk in downtown Annapolis.
We wondered why parking was so scarce... but found a spot to put the car this time. We three got out and started to walk...

As we do, we stopped by the Historic Annapolis shop for dog stuff...

This towel says, "No more treats for me!" and Cole said, "don't even try it!" We looked out the window when we heard bagpipes...

And... Oh. My. WORD! Approx. 150 nearly naked people were running down main street. We went downstairs to get a closer look...

er, on second thought, maybe not this close... I got a few more pictures but those nuts were letting all the jingle bells hang out, and I didn't want to shock anyone here!!
It's enough to say, we had on jackets, Cole wore his "fur coat" and those runners had on speedos and bikinis. The above guys were among the more conservatively dressed. At 10 in the morning, it was an eye opener. We have lived in MD for over 20 years now, and never heard of this.

While we were gawping at the scantily dressed Cole took a moment to meet Lily... a sweet doggie who performs emotional support service. Oh she was nice, and Cole was invited to visit with her.

 He looks too excited here, but he was very calm and well behaved with her. I imagined her saying, "Cole, my dear, do you suppose you could back up just a wee bit? Thank you so very much"

We watched the people who had obviously enjoyed O'Brien's pub early in the day, spilling out onto main street and stopping traffic. Then we continued our walk, spying this dog lover's address. And the cat who calmly watched Cole saunter by, 

It was a momentous walk for us all. Cole was tired when we got home...

He laid down his head for a long Winter's nap, dreaming of Whimsies and walks and girly dogs named Lily.

He did make a complaint to management about his bed being too small. Management said, "turn around"

Oh never mind...

Oy! Christmas!

I went on a virtual house tour this morning and although it was beautiful it wasn’t my reality.

This is my reality…

the quilt was made long ago from a Linda DeBono pattern. It's full of metallic threads sparking away. 

A little mantel scene, the monk from my word of the year Joy, a snowbaby, a word of course!

My snowbaby collection started one year when my sister sent one thinking I collected them. Well, she started something! I loved this one to remind me of the porch sitting while watching birds.

I should have shown you the bag of unopened Christmas cards to send… sorry, it got away from me this year

The family room tree, with poodle perch. Hey we live here folks!

This is the tree in the entry, a poinsettia DH picked up at an office party for me, sad little red lights without garland. Plant sits in the pink wire flamingo

 a table runner turned sofa ornament,

 my tote bag during the season,

 my purse for the holidays (this is a popular class, great for gifts and do able in a day)
I have made purses for every occasion over the years. I make one each time I teach the original pattern. I still love wearing my art. 




Aside from kitchen towels for the season, which never fail to make me smile, and a couple of hand towels in the powder room, and lights in the trees,  this is our holiday home.  If you want to see fancy, check this out:
http://sewmanyways.
Do you all decorate your homes for the holidays?  If you did a blogpost on them make sure you leave the address for us to come see.
Stay tuned for the crazy event we saw in Annapolis this weekend.