Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

We sure have a lot to be thankful for…Big Dogs Big Hearts rescue that brought us all together, friends in Blogville and everywhere, and of course our family, but the one thing we are both thankful for today is…SNOW! Oh boy do we both love to play in the snow. Okay we love to play no matter what the weather, but we just had our first snow of the season and was it fun! Take a look at some of the action from yesterday.

If you can’t see the video you can go here to view it.

We always have so much fun zooming around our yard and the snow makes it that much more fun.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone and to all our friends that celebrate it have a Happy Hanukkah!

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Hooking on Hump Day – Late Edition

Hi everyone, it’s Cindy here to tell you a little about one of my recent crochet finishes. Do you remember the crochet baby blanket I made for a baby shower in August? Here let me refresh your memory.

Crochet Baby Blanket

Well, baby Corinne was born in mid October. All along I had hoped to include some accessories with the blanket, but if you read my post about making the blanket you know I ran out of time. So after she was born I got back to work on those accessories.

Baby Hat and Booties

It’s okay to squee a little. Don’t you just love those little booties?

Yellow Baby Booties – front view

The booties were fairly simple to make and the pattern is from the June 2010 Crochet World magazine. I used the ribbed cuff variation for both sets of booties.

Purple Baby Booties – side view

Since I had three different yarns for the blanket I wanted to find a hat pattern the would use all three.

Baby Hat

Of course it did mean lots of ends to sew in, but I love the way it looks. This pattern is from Red Heart and is called Ruffled Posies Hat.

Baby Hat – Flower detail

The pattern called for the flower to be sewn on with a french knot but I didn’t like how it looked so I sewed it in my way.

Millie approves of the baby things

Millie thought these little baby things were so cute and wanted to pose with them.

Don’t worry mom…just a little sniff here

She decided to give them the sniff test before I packed them up for shipping. So far I don’t have any pictures of sweet little Corinne in any of these crochet goodies, but hopefully someday I will so I can share them with you. By the way if you are wondering how I kept the hat standing up a partially used roll of toilet paper worked perfectly.

I’m linking up this post with Hookin on Hump Day.

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Fashion Friday – It’s for the Dogs!

Hey Otto! This one’s for you! It’s Cindy here to tell you about a new addition to my Etsy shop. This is what some of you have been waiting for. I’ve added custom made dog  bandannas to my Etsy store.

Do you want to be the best dressed dog in your neighborhood? Then send your mom or dad to my shop and have them order you your own bandanna.

Best Dressed Dogs

First you can pick from over 20 different colors of fabrics and then choose an embroidery that suits your personality.

Backyard Security Bandanna for Sarge

You can check out all of the embroideries that are available by hopping on over to my Cindy’s Thread Craft blog where you will find a wide variety of pet related designs that would go great on these bandannas.

Of course you have all seen the “Rescue Paw” embroidery and the most recent addition of the “Backyard Security” embroidery I created for Sarge (shown above). I’ve created another version of that embroidery for all the squirrel hunters out there.

Squirrel Patrol Embroidery

How about a couple of designs for the upcoming holiday season?

Nice Until Proven Naughty

All I Want For Christmas Is You

Get the look that is just right for you by choosing the fabric color that compliments you furs and then choosing the colors in the embroidery that goes well with that color.

Rescue Paw on Red and Pink

Each bandana is double sided with embroidery on one side and printed fabric on the back to make it reversible. I will choose an appropriate backing fabric to coordinate with the bandana. I use high quality quilter’s cottons for these bandanas.

Sizing:

• Small – fits neck size 10″ – 16″
• Medium – fits neck size 15″ – 20″
• Large – fits neck size 18″ – 27″

Large and Small Bandannas

Well what are you waiting for? Grab your humans’ plastic card and head to Cindy’s Thread Craft to order your bandanna now!

Sharp Dressed Dogs!

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Tasty Tuesday – Zuke’s Lil’ Links

Hi everyone! It’s Walter here to tell you about a great give away we won a few weeks ago. Gizmo had a whole week of giveaways to celebrate his Gotcha Day and Millie and I won 3 bags of Zuke’s Lil’ Links.

Gizmo with his own Zuke’s Lil’ Links

Gizmo got his own set of 3 bags of Zuke’s treats and then was able to give away another 3 bags and we won!

This smells good!

First I had to check out the box just like Gizmo. They smelled great even before mom opened any bags.

Zuke’s helped me pose for my photo shoot

Mom decided to use my Halloween costume photo shoot to see how good the Zuke’s were. If you look close you can see the bag is open but I was focused on mom because she had some treats in her hand.

I can’t resist any longer!

OMD! These treats are fantastic! They are about an inch long and soft so mom prefers to break them into smaller pieces when she gives them to us. I don’t really care how she gives them to me as long as she gives me some!

Zuke’s Lil’ Links Treats

There are three flavors Pork & Apple, Chicken & Apple and Rabbit & Apple and they are all my favorite! If you are looking for a great healthy treat to use for training you can’t go wrong with these. Thanks again Gizmo for having all those giveaways during your Gotcha Week!  We sure are a couple of lucky pups!

 

We are hooking up with Sugar’s Tasty Tuesday Blog hop today!

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Marketplace Monday – Holiday Shopping

Hi everyone, it’s Cindy here. Normally I don’t talk about my Etsy shop much but with the holidays fast approaching I thought now was the time.

In addition to the custom bags and purses I also sell custom pet toys. Did you sign up for the Jazzi’s gift exchange and want to find something special for your exchange partner? There are toys available for both dogs and cats.

Small, Medium, and Large
Dog Bone Toys

Dog bones are available in three sizes and can be personalized with almost anything you would like to say. Each bone is made of fleece fabric with machine embroidery embellishment and includes a squeaker inside.  You can also add a paw print or cluster of hearts if room allows.

Add a paw print or cluster of hearts

So far I have only received rave reviews from satisfied customers of my fleece dog bones.

Hafiz loves his squeaky bone!

Don’t worry the kitties are not to be left out. There are three different styles of cat toy available.

Catnip Filled Cat Toys

Each cat toy is made of fleece fabric with machine embroidery embellishment and includes catnip inside. Choose a ready made item from the shop or request a custom order to have any toy made in a wide variety of available fleece colors.

Mayor Madi enjoying her fish toy

I have also received only rave reviews on my catnip toys. As you can see our esteemed Mayor Madi enjoyed a fish I sent her a while ago.

Kip gets kicking with a bird toy

And some cats enjoy them so much they are too fast to focus on.

All pet toys ship via first class postage, including international shipments, to keep costs down. Some international orders can take about 4 – 5 weeks for delivery so please plan accordingly.

So what are you waiting for? Hop on over to Cindy’s Thread Craft and check out the Pet Toy section. You can also visit my Cindy’s Thread Craft blog where you will find a gallery of samples of previously created toys. You will also find pictures of many satisfied customers in the gallery including some Blogville residents you might recognize.

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Hooking on Hump Day – Halloween Costumes

Hi everyone, it’s Cindy here to tell you a little about the Halloween costumes I made for Millie and Walter this year. Even though it has been just over a year since I learned to crochet I guess I can no longer call myself a novice hooker. I feel that since I have started making up my own patterns and creating free form crochet I will have to classify myself as an intermediate hooker now.

With the big Blogville Halloween Ball approaching I wanted to make some fun costumes for the pups. When I started I didn’t even know that Millie would have a date, but I wanted something for her that would look great against her black fur.

Millie models her cute Candy Corn inspired dress

After searching the internet I stumbled upon a pattern for a candy corn sweater sized for a cat and used that as my inspiration for Millie’s dress. I used the basic concept from that pattern for the body (orange portion) and upper body/neck area but had to just play it by feel for how big to make it. I really liked how it was just open in front and didn’t rely on leg holes. The above picture was taken prior to me redoing the upper white portion. It was a bit loose and hung down too low so I ripped some of it out and redid it with fewer rows.

How do you like my cute gathered skirt?

For the lower portion I created a large yellow rectangle about three times the width I wanted the skirt to be. I anchored a couple strands of yarn at one end, wove them along the length of one edge and gathered it up . I used two rows of single crochet to attach the skirt to the bottom of the orange portion.

Crochet Candy Corn Dress – top view

The entire dress is done in double crochet. I did it a bit loose so Millie’s black fur would show through a little.

You can see how the white portion is smaller than the previous picture.

This style of sweater for the dogs was very easy to put on and take off. While Millie might not look thrilled in her pictures it is mostly because she is not a big fan of modeling, but she really didn’t mind wearing the dress.

Now on to Walter’s Bumble Bee costume.

Don’t I make a cute bee?

For Walter’s costume I had made the main body section a little bigger than I should have. To make it fit better I decided to  weave some elastic around both the top and bottom edges of the main body to gather it up a bit. I think it worked out great as it gave the costume some added volume.

I can’t believe she made me wear these antenna!

I even made a headband with ear holes (although they weren’t placed quite right) to attach some antenna to, but I didn’t make Walter wear it for very long. He really is a good boy and never really tried to shake them off, but you could tell he would rather not be wearing them.

Bumble Bee Antenna Headband

I used part of a Red Heart pattern to make the antenna. The last part was to make the wings.

Original design for Bumble Bee wings

I did the wings totally free form working it with double crochet and then a single chain stitch repeated across each row. I made two halves that I joined down the center. I used single crochet to join the two halves and also worked pipe cleaners (chenille stems) along the seam. From there I continued around the outer edge with single crochet around pipe cleaners to give the wings some stability.

Crochet Bumble Bee Costume with Wings

After I finished the wings I realized they were going to be a bit big for the costume. I also noticed from pictures of actual bumble bees that my concept was a bit off from reality, but if I folded the wings at the narrow section they more closely resembled real wings. I then added a few stitches to anchor the two halves together.

Crochet Bumble Bee Costume – side view

To attach the wings to the body I made a couple of chains out of the white yarn and tied them on. This way I can easily take them off to have a plain sweater for Walter to wear if he needed it for warmth. With Walter’s first winter with us approaching I figured this way he would have something to wear if needed.

Millie & Walter modeling their Halloween Costumes

Over all I’m real happy with how these turned out. If I ever need to make something for them to keep them warm this is the form I  will use.

I’m linking up this post with

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Mischief Monday – Yarn Bombing the Kitchen

Hi everyone it’s Cindy here to tell you about a little mischief that occurred in our house yesterday. Originally I had a different topic planned for today, but when the incident that I am about to describe to you occurred I had no choice but to tell you all about it.

Sweet Innocent Walter

Remember how just yesterday I posted a handsome picture of this sweet boy? Well around 7 pm Sunday evening both the pups were requesting a potty break. Even though our yard is fenced in we always put the pups on leash when they need to do their business after dark so they get the job done and come right back in. Otherwise who knows how long it might take. Because of this I also take them out one at a time and as usual last night I took Walter out first. While I was out with Millie I could see Walter watching us from the family room window. After a short while Millie and I came inside and were welcomed by this scene.

Brother I think you might be in a bit of trouble.

I think Walter was trying his hand at yarn bombing the kitchen (click here if you don’t know what that is). I imagine that he grabbed the skein and ran into the kitchen shaking his head and spewing yarn everywhere he went. Oh what fun he was having!

Okay so of course since there are posed pictures of the perp and the crime scene, along with the innocent by stander, Millie, I did what every good blogger would do and got the camera out. After a good laugh at my misfortune I asked my husband if he heard anything going on since he was upstairs while the mayhem was going on. Why yes he did, but he just thought Walter was playing with one of his toys.

Hey Mom do you like what I did with your yarn?

After I gathered the yarn Walter came over to me to apologize…or so I thought.

You don’t mind if I run off with this again do you mom?

I couldn’t believe the cheek of it! While snuggling in my lap he reached over and grabbed the only balled up part remaining and was going to make off with it!

That looks like quite a mess mom.

Well after that Walter apologized and left me to my work. I had planned on working on something else, but spent the next 3+ hours balling up all that yarn. At least he left me a small part (you can see it on the right above his nose) that was still wound from the original skein. Otherwise I don’t know how I could have found an end to start with.

An unadulterated skein and the re-balled skein (in two parts)

The skein on the left is what the balls on the right originally looked like. Yes I wasn’t able to make it into one large ball. As I got toward the end it seemed the yarn just kept getting more tangled. I was able to find the loose end and started working my way from that end, but there was just one knot I could not get rid of so I ended up with one large and one small ball of yarn.

So I guess the moral of the story is that even though Walter is now over a year old and usually just plays with his own toys the temptation of a tote bag full of yarn on the floor is just more than a young pup can bear. Needless to say my bag of yarn is no longer on the floor next to my chair.

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Black & White Sunday – Walter at 1 Year

Such a handsome boy!

We are participating in the Black & White Sunday blog hop.

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