Tis the season....

Cat peelings....

.... and PVC pipe.....

..... these are a few of my favorite things!!!


will post more as the evening wears on....

Meet the Irving

This is the Irving....


He joined our household last weekend from the Oregon Humane Society. He was described as being "extremely lovable and people oriented, a bit of a lap dog, and a love sponge". He came from California as part of the Second Chance program. He has been in shelters since early August and was not adopted in Bakersfield, CA, so he was sent up here to Portland around Oct 13. We adopted him on Saturday, Oct 16. Bakersfield thought he was a Long Hair Chihuahua... NOT. Oregon Humane Society thought he was a Spaniel Mix... closer. He has an unusual color for a small spaniel. The only small spaniel (other than the cocker) with a blonde coat is the Tibetan Spaniel. But Irving has long legs and a long body, so there might be some Pinscher mixed in. We are guessing a German Pinscher. So for now we are just calling him The Tibetan Love Sponge.

Irving the Tibetan Love Sponge needed a run or kennel. We had nothing for the first night... so he slept in bed with us. The next day we cleared a space and began work.





We emptied and moved the compost bins. Here they are sitting empty in the backyard before they get reinstalled.



We added this fence by using a pre-fab picket length and cut it apart to make a gate and small fence section.



However, we discovered a challenge with the width of the Love Sponge's chest and the distance between the pickets.
Here is a visual representation of the geometry set before us:



.... which means that the line marked with CD can EASILY fit through the line marked with AB. This was remedied by the speedy installation of additional pickets who's line should have been marked with something like "I can't believe that I have to go back to the hardware store again" line.

The resulting fence contains the Love Sponge and still looks rather sharp. It needs a proper coat of paint.... it's raining, so the painting will probably happen sometime in April.... but the run is functional and and is easy to use.





Lot's of nice cedar chips smell great and will hopefully keep the fleas down. Those suckers love damp bark to hibernate in.

Some serious love for the Spring 11 runway...

I discovered the Full Frontal Fashion website and love the new nude transparent garments coming down the runway.

I am seriously in love with this diaphanous trench coat...




And the lovely Beth Ditto....

Sunhat from Summer

I am recovering from a root canal this morning... or rather waiting for the novacaine to wear off so I can have some coffee without spilling it down my front... and was going through my old pictures and realized that I hadn't posted my fabulous sunhat project from this summer. The idea came, of course, from Burdastyle using the Summer Beach Hat project.

I was at the farm in Idaho, so the pictures are from my mom's sewing room.





I need to find a finished picture of me in it.

It's fall... must be time for knitting

I am still lamenting the disappearance of Knit 1 magazine. But Vogue Knitting had these lovely patterns on their site:



.... very inspiring and lots of color. I still need to get my tank top done that I started this summer.