Her sweater is Watermelon colored- perfect for summer!
preppy pug
And now back to the happy pugs!
I do like making these cuties! And here she is with her friend.
Both dogs have cashmere coat fabric bodies. Her ears are also cashmere, his are alpaca. Their “jackets” are wool. Her skirt is a cashmere sweater ribbing.
sad pug
Well, the pug isn’t sad. I am. I sewed up this fellow, turned him then stuffed him. I sewed on his face, his scarf and his buttons. And then I held him out to admire him and…
Can you see it? There is a yellowish line about an inch down from the edge of his jacket. That’s a problem with working with recycled materials- they have a history to show. The line looks to me like a hem line and it is not going to come out. It is more of a wear line than a stain. If I’d noticed earlier I could have cut around the mark. Oh well. Everything does not come out perfectly. That is what handmade is all about.
I still think he is totally adorable. I am just not sure what I’ll do with him.
and now some pugs!
I think I love him!
Sewing Machine Accessory Bible
Now, another book I have just finished.
I was shopping for books on Amazon and this book came up in one of those creepy we know what you really want suggestions. Um, yep. I did want that. When I bought my trusty Bernina 930 used, just a few short months after I started this blog, it came with lots of feet, many of which I have never even tried to figure out how to use. (I posted about it here.) Really, it is probably time, right?!
Considering the number of feet that are made for various purposes, I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to match up most of mine with the ones in the book- even though most look completely different. Figuring out what feet I have meant pulling out my manual and also a separate book that is specifically about the accessories.
There are some that I am still confused about though. In none of my resources are there explanations along the lines of- yes they look alike but they are different in this little way. Below are 3 feet. Two on the right are the same, Blind Stitch foot. The other is Edge stitching. ??? That one on the left has little indentations on the edge but I have no idea what they are for.
update– here is a whole blog post on Badskirt about the edge stitcher! Thanks Ryan!
And, amazingly, after 9+ years, I finally put in the double needle and tried it out. First I tried it with a regular foot and then with one of the pintuck feet. I never actually knew they went together- that was worth reading the book right there!
Here are my pintucks- a mid-weight wool, a quilt cotton, a light weight cotton.
And this is how many books I had open on my table to figure it out!
I can imagine I might use pintucks on something. I always thought that they were very hard to do but it turns out the right tools make it easy.
I was able to get this book out of my library which works really well for me- the due date gives me a deadline to get the book read. This book was worth getting simply because it gave me the kick I needed to pull those dusty parts out of the drawer and figure out how they work. And embarrassingly enough, I discovered I already had a foot that I bought on Ebay a few months ago and another one that I’d been planning to buy. Yikes! Clearly I needed to go through all my stuff again.
dog 6- poodle in pink
I love this black boucle fabric but it is so hard to photograph!
This one has real little buttons sewn onto her sweater, not felt circles. And a cashmere skirt and kerchief.
And she has a short tail. Here is a profile-
She matches the peonies.
dog 5- a beret!
I love this curly fabric (formerly known as natural color boucle sweater). It is so perfectly doggy.
Add to that, my old fair isle sweater that I was very sad to have to relegate to the recycle pile.
And a soft cashmere scarf and beret. This doggie is a winner!
And the garden is pretty amazing these days too!
books and more dogs
Thank you so much to everyone who clicked through the links, way back on this post, and bought books on Amazon. As a result, I had a little pile of Amazon $ and I bought some new craft books to review! Actually, I went to choose some books and the next thing I knew, I had a long list of books- far too many for my budget. Luckily I was able to order some of them up from the library. And then I had an avalanche of books because of course they all come at once! It is a very good problem to have. I will be sharing in the next few weeks because it is really fun!
The first book is Lisa Solomon’s Knot Thread Stitch: Exploring Creativity through Embroidery and Mixed Media
She is going to be one of the teachers at Art Camp so I really wanted to check out her book. I was very interested to see that it was full of unusual embroidery projects- including machine embroidery and printmaking! It is a very interesting combination of solid instructions to learn embroidery techniques with some super cool and unusual projects. I can not wait to meet her in August!
There will be more about the books soon but now, back to the dogs. I made some dogs in January as I was working on patterns and getting ready for my guest artist gig at Gather Here. I never put them in my shop because somehow… well, I just didn’t. So I spent a little more time with them. There is this fellow back in January and now-
with a shirt collar and french knot buttons. It’s not much but he looks finished now.
And this fellow hardly got a mention back in January. I am liking him much better with his cashmere scarf and hat.
Yes, I LOVE the hat!
Okay, that is 6 dogs so far and there are lots more to come!
dog 4- boy in fair isle
dog 3- tall girl
I love using soft textured fabrics on the dogs. This sweet girl has angora knit ears- so soft! And her red skirt is cashmere. Just perfect!