The Sewing Mom

Hard to believe, but I’ve actually been able to sit here this morning, enjoy several cups of coffee, spend time catching up on email, and all in the peace and quiet while daughter and dh are at softball practice. This has truly been an excellent morning!

I am willingly putting an end to my peaceful morning and heading out into the heat to do some much needed landscaping work. I’m sure I’ll be jumping into the pool regularly to cool down, but I hope to get most of the bushes trimmed by the end of today. I got started on this major project this past Wednesday and am actually almost half way finished. It’s times like this when I realize just how many bushes we have around our house!

I hope everyone has a fabulous Saturday and is able to enjoy some family time!

My daughter has had a friend over for the past two days and they pretty much camped out in our upstairs t.v. room when they weren’t out in the pool. I headed up there this afternoon and had to put everything back in order before I felt comfortable sitting down on the sofa. The pillows and blankets were strewn all over the room. I even found dirty clothes and dishes shoved between the sofa cushions, yuck!

The worst thing I noticed though was all the dog hair all over the sofa. I’m sure it looked this bad before her friend came over, but I really need to clean it. I have one of those pet sweepers I can use on all the cushions, it’s so much easier than using the heavy vacuum. I think there’s enough dog hair on the cushions, I could probably construct a new dog!

I’ve been pretty surprised at how much our dog sheds, particularly since every breeder I talked to said they don’t shed much. I can tell you first hand that I’m sweeping the wood floors every 2-3 days because of the amount of dog hair and it doesn’t matter what time of year it is, this cute little dog sheds like there’s no tomorrow!

I recently read that it is not normal for dogs or cats to shed year around. This does seem like common sense to me, but, Plinko on the other hand must think differently because she certainly has been shedding all the time in the 2 years she’s been living with us. If there’s a way to cut back on her hair loss, my clean up time would be reduced and I’d have more time for other things. So, I checked out the solutions center at Dinovite and learned that Plinko’s diet may be low in Amino Acids, Fatty Acids and minerals such as Zinc which are all important for maintaining a healthy coat. Dinovite even supplied me with a solution report and a recommendation for nutritional supplements that could help reduce the amount of shedding within 90 days.

While I am going to check into this a little further, I have a pretty strong feeling that I’ll be ordering those supplements. A dog that sheds less would lead to a house filled with less hair!

I am so thrilled, my very first quilt is finally completed! I pieced this quilt together last fall for my granddaughter. It is going to be our gift to her for her 2nd birthday next month. After I pieced the top together, I sent it to my mom who is a long time quilter. In fact, every quilt in my house was made by her, except for one, and that one was made by my sister. My mom hand quilted this for me and sewed on the binding and it is absolutely beautiful (at least, I think so!).

For the final touch, I needed a label to go on the back of the quilt. My embroider software is in my computer that has died, so I did the next best think, I hired someone to make a label for me. I want to shout a HUGE thank you to Susie at Susie’s Sew Creations at Etsy.com. Susie was so incredibly helpful and custom created this wonderful label for me, isn’t it fantastic?!  (the black marks are not really on the label, they’re covering last names for privacy).

Once again, I’m out at the softball fields for the final tournament of the season. Between the sun, the heat and all the required cheering, I doubt I’ll be online during the short period I will be home in the evening. So, I just want to say hi to everyone and I leave you with a photo of an apron created by my sister Grace.

Isn’t this the cutest?! It is for sale if you’re interested.