Three years and still going strong

I got an email the other day from Kara who bought collars from me when I first started making them over three years ago. At that time Kara’s dogs were still learning leash manners and were pretty tough on collars. She asked me to make a few for her.

Kara just sent me pictures of the collars now.. sure they are a little faded but I think they look pretty good for three year old collars!100_0916100_0917100_0918100_0919100_0920100_0921100_0922BaliDukeGuinnessThe Duke-meister

2 Comments »Jennifer on November 14th 2008 in Random Woofs

More for Basja and her Mom

BasjaBasja in her Snowman CollarBasja with SnowmenYawn!

2 Comments »Jennifer on November 9th 2008 in Random Woofs

What a pain in the neck

Literally.

Sunday, I foolishly did (ahem) housework.  Yes, housework. 

Evidently my body, being unfamiliar with this exercise decided to protest… vehemently.

Since Sunday afternoon, I have been in horrible horrible debilitating pain. Can’t turn my head.. can’t think straight.. and certainly can’t sew! It was all I could do to get through a day at work.

I’ve been remiss in blogging.. I meant to blog about Lindsay over at RunThatMutt.com who has ordered some custom leashes from me. And she wrote all about her custom leashes and even put up pictures and I havent’ yet blogged about her amazing knowledge of dog behavior or her ingenious dog running business

I haven’t posted new pics of Basja yet… and they came the other day.

I haven’t written at all about a local charity that I intend to donate some proceeds to.

And most importantly, I haven’t sewn a THING!  All I want to do is sit on the couch with an ice pack and cry.

Thank the Gods for Chiropractors..  I’m just sayin’.

1 Comment »Jennifer on November 7th 2008 in Random Woofs

Gallery is currently down

So, I upgraded Wordpress and I forgot how to make my gallery work with it.. there is some wierd setting that should fix it but I can’t remember what it is!

So, until my brain comes back, the gallery is down

2 Comments »Jennifer on November 5th 2008 in Random Woofs

Coming Soon! Slip Leads!

I’ve used 3/4 inch webbing and a square ring for the loopy bit.. there is a double-O slider that can be used to keep the lead from being too loose around the dogs neck and a D-Ring up by the handle for tags.

I put the d-ring there for Agility people. I know quite a few use a slip lead only for agility trials. I thought it was a neat idea. What do you think?

Close up of Slip LeadSlip HardwareSlip LeadSlip LeadSlip Lead D- Ring Slip Lead D- ring

4 Comments »Jennifer on November 3rd 2008 in New Items!

I may have to start making these on a regular basis

I was honored with another request from Basja’s mom.  She had more fabric laying around the house and she asked if I could make two more collars for her sweet Dane Basja… so of course I said yes.  I finished them up last night.
Click the pic for a full sized image.

flowersflowers2snowmensnowmen2
What do you think? Should I start making martingales on a regular basis? I’ve had some practice now and I’m really starting to get a feel for them.

4 Comments »Jennifer on October 30th 2008 in New Items!

In case you were wondering

I have temporarily lost my blogging mojo.

1 Comment »Jennifer on October 24th 2008 in New Items!

Darnit.. lost my scissors again

I’m sooo tired of losing my scissors… I have three pairs (plus the rotary cutter). One for thread, one for webbing and one for fabric.  I’m not ruining my nice Fiskars on webbing.. no way.. no how.

Part of the problem is that I need these scissors at three different “stations” in my sewing room. Cutting, Ironing and Sewing.  (yes, at my ironing board, I trim edges and cut to length)

So I whipped this together tonight.. It’s not pretty.. I didn’t bother with pretty.. I wanted it to work.

Sewing Apron

Apron Close up

pocket

It has four small pockets in front and the whole thing is one big pocket. I can stick my seam ripper in there..

since it took me 15 minutes to FIND my seamripper.. after I sewed the ties on inside out… so silly.. I guess it’s like sewing sleeves.. I always have to do one wrong!

7 Comments »Jennifer on October 19th 2008 in Random Woofs

There Ain’t Nothing Like a Dane

This is Basja.. isn’t she amazingly beautiful!?

Click the pic for a full sized image.
BasjaBasja2

That collar she is wearing is a custom order. Her Mom, Kendra sent me the fabric and I made it up for her.

I have to thank Kendra. I had been putting off working with martingales.. they can be kind of a pain in the neck. (no pun intended). But this was special to her.. so I gave it a shot. After making quite a few of them for practice, I made one for MY dogs to see how it worked.. then one for Lora since I had more of the Bones and Hydrants fabric than I could shake a stick at and then felt confident enough to put my rotary cutter to the little bit of this amazing fabric that Kendra was able to find.

See, it matches Basja’s pack, and Kendra had a collar made out of this same fabric, made by someone else.. but it didn’t hold up. So now, she’s matchy matchy again.. and I love it!

4 Comments »Jennifer on October 11th 2008 in New Items!

This is who I am

Silly me.. I know better.

I took it in my head to try and advertise on a site that shall remain nameless. I thought it might be fun to send one of my collars in for review.

Now, I’ve done this in the past. Teresa from the Pet Sit USA blog has reviewed one of my collars.. and Lora can’t seem to stop herself. I think I need to start a support group. LOL!

But this site was more for the froo froo dogs.. which if I had looked.. I mean really looked, I would have seen this and realized that this is just not my crowd. Fashion plate and Luxury and Fluff are not for me.

I got a very pleasant response from the site owner with the suggestion that my collars don’t fit their clientele.. and she is right.. they don’t..

After I got over my initial, well PPLLLLLLPPPPFFFFTTTT! to you to! response. I thought about it for a bit. She is definatlely right.. and I’m totally cool with that.

Her suggestion was to consider working with:
* more luxurious fabrics? and/or
* stainless/chrome hardware? and/or
* a more “corporate” storefront?

It was also suggested that most of her clientele look for handsewn items to be more luxurious than what you can find in the store.

Well, here is what I think.

I’m no princess.. and neither are my dogs. Some dogs to get all pampered and powdered but not here.. and not me.

I have mascara.. it’s 10 years old. I color my hair.. for fun. I recently went back to contact lenses so I can not worry about getting hit in the face in Karate class. My hair is as short as I can make it an still look presentable at work. Otherwise, I’d shave my head. This is me.

I have punk goth jewelry that I can only wear out once in a while. I like sneakers and work boots and flannel.. I like function over form.

This is me.. these are my dogs… this is my work. My craft.. and someone actually referred to my collars as art… I don’t get it.. but I appreciate it.

My collars are for the “every dog”..they are the button down shirt with jeans and cowboy boots. You can toss them in the wash when your dog rolls in mud. You can wear them in the practice ring, the rally ring, the obedience ring, to the vet, to your Aunt Martha’s house, to the store, in the woods, in the yard, in the pool, in the pond, etc etc.. and they look fabulous.

This is me.. these are my dogs.. these are my collars.

And I’m damn proud of it.

5 Comments »Jennifer on October 10th 2008 in New Items!