After all these years, I'm a dog lover!

...and it's all thanks to my friend Amy from TheGreedyCrocodile!

My mother was in hospital recently and was not enjoying it much. I knew she was desperately missing her dog, so I took loads of photos, sent them to Amy and *drum roll* she made a felted portrait. It's incredibly accurate, I don't know how she does it!

Go on then - I defy you to tell the difference...well, I suppose Amy's thumb gives it away a bit.

After seeing Archie, I had to ask Amy to make my favourite dog, Whisper. She belongs to my aunt, who is a lifelong dog trainer. She qualified for Crufts Obedience Trials once, but sadly the dog was ill so she didn't get there. My aunt used to do regular dog displays at fetes. When I was a child I was often roped in as a dog jump! I'd stand there in the middle of the field, hands on knees, and dogs would hurdle me. Wouldn't happen these days.

Anyway - Whisper, her current dog, is very clever. She's taught herself to tidy up her toys (shame children don't learn so quickly) and carries her ball-on-a-string by hooking it over a tooth. She's worked out that means she can still pant!

Here she is:

And here's the new version (the grass is too wet to put her down!)

Thanks Amy! If you'd like your pet immortalised by Amy, here's the link for dog portraits. She doesn't only do dogs though, oh no - there are mad scientists, cats, ponies, dragons, bears - even a dismembered FOOT! Check out TheGreedyCrocodile today :-)

For inconsiderate dog walkers everywhere

Sassy...a shaggy dog's tale

I've been working on a commission for DoodyPops for AAAAGESSS, but finally we're ready to show the world!



First, may I introduce the subject of much head-scratching and deep thought:

Miss Sassy - a hairy little dog (if ever there was one) belonging to DoodyPops and Mr DoodyPops.

She is a Cairn /Chihuahua mix and is about 8 lbs now - was 5 lbs when we got her.
She was returned to her breeder and was put outside to live in the backyard with a wolf Hybrid in North Carolina.



A friend of a friend had a backyard that backed up to this breeder's backyard and got to know Sassy .....then it got bitterly cold one winter and she put out a plea for someone to adopt her. We already had 3 dogs, but there was something about her photos. I kept asking my husband Mark...and finally he was so worried about her he said yes.

We worked feverishly with a rescue group to get her on the doggie 'underground railroad" from NC to PA after the flight option fell through. These wonderful people each take a leg of a journey each weekend and help get the dogs to their forever homes. We did a few after adopting Sassy and its very rewarding.



When we got our little Sassy- she was much smaller than we had thought from the photos! She had looked sort of like a tall cairn. But she is really a large chihuahua size, well as I said 8 lbs.

Now the good part! When we picked her up, we met the driver at a McDonalds so I had a soda and offered Sassy a sip to try to win her over. Big Mistake. The carbonation made her sneeze and she gave me quite a dirty look. I think she holds it against me a little still, as Mark is her favorite.



Favorite doesn't really define it though. I mean, she adores him. I have never ever seen a dog fawn over someone they way she does him. She flea bites his beard area to 'groom' him. He can do anything to her, hold her like a baby, clean her eyes, cut her nails,........while she will growl at me for just having the nerve to walk past her! HA! She will snuggle with me though, but still growls if I pet her. Its not a bad growl- she just talks that way.

We lengthened her name to Sassafrass by the way, but we can see how she earned her first name.

Until recently, when my other dog Nicky decided to help wake Sassy up, Sassy would sleep in EVERY day! Till noon! Now she drags herself outside first thing to sunbathe on some rocks... my husband wants me to put sunscreen on her nippies. As if I could get near them! As you can see she is quite a little character.


She looks like several animals all moshed together. I see raccoon, lemur, veiled lizard (because she has a ruff of longer fur around her neck)....and Kramer from Seinfeld.





Of course the question now is...can I bear to part with mini-Sassy?

Pop back tomorrow to meet Doodypops

Beautiful Bulldogs???

Although I don't want to offend the dog-lovers amongst you, I'm a cat person.



These pictures have done little to change my preference...



I'm not *quite* sure what the judges are looking for...



For three years (according to Yahoo news) Porterhouse was so close to the title he could drool on it. Now, the Beautiful Bulldog crown is his to slobber on for the rest of the year.

Evolution of a dachshund

Some while back I ventured on to one of the frequent threads on Etsy "What do you think of this avatar?"

My meerkat was mistaken for a dachshund! Excellent, I thought, that's my next project then.

I thought at first that I wouldn't need to do much more than turn my meerkat sideways, but that didn't work quite as well as I'd hoped!


I googled some pictures and set to work. I changed the angle of the legs, changed the increasing for his head so that it wasn't so central on the neck, and angled the tail.



Not quite there yet. I could see the body needed to be longer, and somehow it just didn't look quite right. I started looking out for dachshunds on my daily walks!

I needed expert advice, so went back to Etsy forums and discovered there is actually an Etsy team for Dachshund lovers! Clearly these were the folk to ask for help. I sent a message to SassySashadoxie and she was kind enough to send me lots of photos of Sasha.



Another Etsian, Covetables, told me that dachshunds have waists and that was the next addition to my pattern.

(By the way, when I say "pattern" don't be fooled - we're talking about a scrappy piece of paper with sketches and scrawled pencil notes.)

I now had a dachshund I was happy with, and listed a few.



But I was still well aware that I wanted to go further. Sasha, you will recall, is part black, part tan.

I sat and stared at my prototype for a while, working out how many stitches needed to be each colour, and set to work once more, referring frequently to my Sasha gallery.

My next pup had a very rumpled tummy, due to carrying the black yarn across the back of the tan.

I like to knit "in the round" on 4 needles, but working with four needles and two colours of wool at the same time was clearly not conducive to mental health (or to a smooth doggy tummy) so I went back to my pattern once more to make it work on two needles. After several attempts, we got there!



I checked back at my Sasha gallery:
ears: black on top, tan below? CHECK!
tan on underside of tail? CHECK!
tan butt? CHECK!
black eye mask? CHECK!
tan eyebrows? CHECK!
tan lower legs? CHECK!
black back? CHECK!



Many thanks to Covetables and SassySashadoxie and most of all to the lovely Sasha :-)

Want one? check them out here!

Is there no end to this woman's obsession...

with treasuries? LOL I keep being in the right place at the right time. It finally dawned on me I can show the alternates as well on here:


http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list_west.php?room_id=17116

You might notice I've taken the somewhat frowned upon option of including one of my own items - the little white scottie dog - I'll wait and see if I get complaints! Frankly I dont see why I shouldn't, after all the other inclusions are all getting a bit of free promoting?