Puppy Fetching

No, not new puppies. Certain people may want to breathe easier now. One is enough.

The dog who lives here, Darby, is a very smart dog, and I just don't have time to explore all that she is capable of. One thing she has learned is to clean up the yard when she comes inside. Every time she goes out, she has a toy (puppy) in her mouth, so by the end of the day she has 5 or 6 scattered over the yard.


It's become a game to us, and she is totally enthusiatic about it - at first. After bringing in about 3, she starts looking inside as if to say, "I BROUGHT you a puppy."


This is how it starts. She runs up initially with one puppy in her mouth, usually her favorite sheep.

I take it and then say, "Go get puppy."

Here comes another sheep.

And then a pig.

One one more, some kind of rodent-looking thing. The enthusiasm is fading.

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It's funny how even though there may be a good many toys outside, I can always count on her having the 2 sheep and the pig.

I'm working on her handing them to me now instead of dropping them at my feet.

Mike sent me an article the other day about a dog who has thousands of words in her vocabulary. I wish I had time to work with Darby. She knows some things like "out" and "eat" and, of course "no".

When I ask where the kitty is, she'll run all over the yard looking for one of our cats. She has enough Border Collie in her genes to have tried to herd the 2 cats, but they put a stop to that from the start - with claws. Now when they try to snuggle up to her or wash her face, she keeps her eyes averted. Never trust a cat.

Elise's quilt is growing slowly. I'm happy with how fast it goes together. I do an assembly line thing with it and can turn out 4 or 5 pairs in a morning. Just finding those free mornings is the problem.

I'm having to work on my tendency to want to "match" or use a neutral with every dark. Elise wants it more scrappy, so I'm going to have to put some combinations together that go against that tendency.

I was going to take step-by-step pictures of the construction of the set of 2 blocks, and thought my Ott light would be a good light for it. Wrong. It looks like they were taken at the bottom of an aquarium.

Anyway.

It starts with two 5-1/2 by 20 strips.

These are cut into 2 wide and 4 narrow strips.

And sewn togther with opposite colors.

And pressed with seams going the opposite way on each one.

Then these 2 sets are cut into 6 more pieces.

And arranged into Block A and Block B.

Easy as it can be.


If the pressing is done right, it will lay flat and pay off later when they're all joined together. I need all the help I can get.

I still have some tweaking to do - maybe or maybe not. One corner doesn't quite meet, but as long as the blocks measure 6-1/2" x 6-1/2", we're not worried if every corner matches. Maybe when I enter one in a quilt show one day. Yeah, right.

This is a better idea of those blues in the sunlight.

It's a beautiful day today, and I'm going to try to get outside a little bit and enjoy the sunshine.

Maybe not as much as Stella though.