Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Review of Sofi and Friends Winter Dog Jacket

Love this pattern!  I've finished three jackets for Bertie using it.  I'm showing them in the reverse order because I want to show the best one first.  This one is in laminated cotton cuz ya gotta have a spring raincoat, right?
 

My dragon has to do the modeling since Bertie is at his parent's house.  The hood goes down nicely once the rain stops.

I used webbing and plastic clips for belly strap on this one.  Bertie can be energetic.  It is easier to get the clip snapped than lining up the Velcro.  I also started sewing the chest tabs shut by this third jacket rather than using Velcro there because it can be slipped over Bertie's head easily with no need for the extra work and expense of Velcro.  If you are sewing for someone else and unsure of the size or have a growing dog the Velcro option makes perfect sense.

Another jacket completed was a simple denim without the hood. It has the Velcro strips on the front, but I ended up just sewing it shut anyway after spending too much time trying to get the little snot to sit still long enough to line up the Velcro strips.


The belly tabs have wide Velcro which is easier to get together than the individual strips I used on the chest area.  Still, I am inclined to use plastic clips and webbing for this belly area on the jackets in the future for ease in getting it on quickly and keeping it securely in place.


This last one was a hurried project because Bertie had outgrown the first rain jacket I made--no pattern then, just winged it.    In my rush,  I didn't take the time to put on a hood which I regretted immediately.  Who makes a raincoat without a hood?  It's a beautiful waterproof fabric, though.  Kyle and Melissa tell me they are constantly asked where they bought the coat.  Kyle uses this jacket all the time because big dogs like to roll Bertie around in the dirt at the dog park. Kyle can just wipe it clean when they get home.  Must find some more of this fabric for bags and such....now where did I buy it?????

Yeah, it's a terrible photo of the coat, but you try getting a squirming little ball of energy to pose!
 I've got enough of the fabric left to make another one with a hood which will happen soon.

Also note the N.Y.C. subway fabric bandana in the photo above.  It's the cotton version of the fabric used for the laminated raincoat at the top of the post.  This boy has more bandanas than some small stores and still managed to be wearing a coat and scarf that never, ever should be worn together.   The subway fabric is from The City Quilter.  It's a bit expensive, but Bertie is a New York City dog and it's New York City fabric!  I could not resist.

Next on the sewing list is a hoodie sweatshirt.  I'm pretty sure hoodies are required for street cred in the city.  Oh, and harnesses!  Wait until you see the barbed wire webbing I found.

Meet Bertie

 Kyle and Melissa got a dog!  Lucky me, all the fun and no vet bills.  Yes, Bertie is wearing both a sweater and a coat in this photo.  He's a rescue dog brought up to a New York City shelter from Georgia.  He's been slowly adjusting to cold, snow, and city traffic--very, very slowly.
Granddogs are apparently allowed on the furniture.
Bertie is a quite the cuddler.
Melissa and Bertie

Kyle and Bertie
He also loves my sewing room!  Bertie finds all the fleecy, fluffy fabrics on the lower shelves and gleefully pulls them down.  He is particularly found of fake furs and flannels.  I've caught him racing around the house with fabric trailing behind more times than I can count.  Bertie is also convinced that the rolled fabric remnants from Joanne's are actually chew toys.  I've always wanted someone to hang out with in the sewing room, but this wasn't what I had in mind.  Hard to resist those cute little eyes and those skinny little legs, though.
That's supposed to be a bandana, but he does look sweet in a babushka, doesn't he?

Friday, January 6, 2017

I have been busy...


 



 

It seems as though I have had one project after another for months now.  Starting with the last, here is one of the few photos I have from Kyle and Melissa's December 17th wedding.  I was trying to be polite and stay out of the real photographers' way.  My bad.  I have almost no nice pics from the wedding.

The reception was at the Whiteface Lodge in Lake Placid which is a spectacular setting for a winter wedding. 

The view from our room.
I stressed way too much about the pew decorations.  My one job for the wedding was to make twenty of them.  I combed the internet for ideas and came up with these cedar swags with simple bows, pine cones and battery operated fairy lights.

Small church in the village of Lake Placid  
 While time consuming to make and needing to be done last minute to ensure freshness, the decorations were fairly easy once I got going.  My sister provided the cedar from her land and help me put them together. In my not so humble opinion, they were perfect!  Must do a post on them because there are few wintery pew decorations ideas on the net.

Other excuses for blog absence continuing in reverse:

1.Window and door replacement on the sun room. Messy, expensive, but worth it.
  
From lots of tall, thin windows with little cranks for opening and closing



to nice big windows with sliders on the side.
 If you are going to make a mess, you might as well tear out the living room windows and replace them, too, right? 
Only the owner finds new windows to be pretty.

2. New patio because the grass I put in after replacing the pool was just not working out for me.


3.  After weeks and weeks of watering new grass where the pool had been we ended up covering a good portion of the new grass with the patio and messing up another portion putting in said patio. What was I thinking?

Nice grass, but that fire pit looked silly without a patio.


4.  Some fun stuff happened, too.  The family vacation at Ocean City, Maryland was great. We managed to get five of the six kids together.   Google keeps turning my photos into gifs for me.  (Sandra, let me know if this plays as a gif here, please and thanks.)  Kyle was off in the waves when this photo (or series of photos if the blog posts this as a gif) was taken.  Melissa was the only one that could not attend.  Her Peace Corp stint was not enough volunteering apparently.  She promptly came home and joined Teach for America.  A good part of her summer was spent in prepping for that with sixteen-hour days. 

Kiefer, Jordan, Pep, Keegan, and Brian.
5.  Also had a special mother-daughter trip to the Eastern States Exposition with Keegan. No lions, tigers, or bears, but lots of horses, cows, and pigs.


 And veggies!


Let's see, there was also the adventure of helping Kyle and Melissa find an apartment in Manhattan and moving them into a fifth floor walk-up on one of the hottest days of the year while the annual so special it has a wikipedia page celebration takes place at the church directly across the street. 

This is the end of my list of cheap excuses for ignoring my blog.  Nah, actually I am feeling kinda good about not pushing myself to post to the blog regularly.  I will be here when I can, but I want it to be a pleasure not a chore.  There may well be more well-spaced blog posts, but I will be back to say hello and to share life and, hopefully, an occasional sewing project from time to time.