Italian sweet peppers, pepperoncini, tomato.

Two dresses to share today.

Same pattern as the little pink dress. Stash fabric was bought at an estate sale for $1. Contrast was from scrap. Ribbon from stash.

This is the third incarnation of this pattern. This time from brown floral stripe that almost makes this look like a nightgown. Again the fabric was $1 at an estate sale, and the contrast was from stash. Hannah is posing like a model. Silly girl.

Meet Prince:

Charlie told Hannah last fall that if she saved enough money she could get a dog. She reached her goal early in the summer, so we bagan searching for a dog. Charlie wanted to get a puppy from a pet store. I refused to get anything (dog or otherwise) that wasn’t already house trained. So we looked at a local animal shelter.

Hannah had a small terrier mix picked out, but at the last minute she (the terrier, not Hannah) showed her true colors. She escaped the try-your-dog-out-before-adoption yard and ran straight for the other dogs in their pens. She reached through a chain link fence and bit a golden retriever on the lip, and wouldn’t let go. It took the shelter employee about 5 minutes to detach her. We did not bring the terrier home.

We were sort of burnt out looking for dogs, and did not search for a couple of weeks. Then this dog showed up at the neighbors’ house.

She told us he was a stray she had taken in. She had been looking for his owners, but had been unsuccessful. She couldn’t keep him permanantly; did we want him?

So we brought him home to try out for a week or so. He is very sweet, house trained, and already knows how to sit, lay down, and stay, though he needs work on the tricks. He rarely barks. He’s bigger than what we were looking for, but he’s working out very well. We will be getting him neutered ASAP. We think he’s part lab (he loves water) and probably pug.

I mentioned last week that Ruth had some teeth pulled. The dentist said she didn’t have room for the adult teeth, and the baby teeth needed to be pulled. So she had four teeth pulled a couple of weeks ago. She was a very good patient. And her gap is so cute!

As part of my stash reduction effort, I made this sweet little dress last week.

Pattern is Simplicity 2909. Fabric was a $1 cut from an estate sale. The ribbon was stash, and the white contrast was cut from yard sale curtains, which were also made into a skirt. (I’ll post on that later.) The ribbon was from stash. I cut a size 3, which is still big on Esther. She’ll probably be able to wear this dress again next summer, if it survives that long.

Both older girls have chosen fabric for me to make this pattern for them. I’m working on Ruth’s now – a blue with purple tulips. Hannah’s is a brown floral stripe.

See the dog? He deserves his own post, too. Stay tuned.

My birthday was yesterday and Charlie got me a new digital camera! It is so nice – nicer than what I would have gotten for myself. So I’ll be back to regular posting on Monday.

Happy 4th of July! Please have a great day full of good food and stay safe.

My digital camera is missing. No one took it. No one has seen it. No one has used it. It just disappeared. So until I find it or get a new one, I can’t show you the dress I made for Hannah, the skirt for Ruth made from yard sale curtains, our new dog, the fairy houses the girls made, or Ruth’s new smile after having had 4 teeth pulled. I’m praying it shows up quickly.

I thought you might like to see the quilt top that is hanging above my sofa.

This is from a round robin I did several years ago on the n2quilting group. I’m not even sure if that group is still around. It was a fun group. I made the center (pieced, not appliqued) and 4 other ladies added to it. I want to add some yellow to the very center, but still haven’t decided whether to do just a yellow dot, or 8 small petals offset from the blue petals.  I also need to true up the edges and fix a small cut along one edge. And of course, it needs to be quilted. Someday.

I mentioned this blouse last Friday. This is part of my stash reduction challenge.

The pattern is Simplicity 2892, view A. The fabric is a vintage poly-blend I got at an estate sale. I can’t decide if I like the blouse or not. Is the combination of this fabric with this pattern a good one? Does the entire thing look like it came out of the 70’s? In a good way or a bad way? One thing I know for sure is that I don’t like wearing these sleeves. I still like the drawing on the pattern envelope, and this looks a good bit like it, but they feel way too big when being worn. So I’ll be donating this top.

I hope you all had a good Fathers’ Day. Ours was quiet, but nice. We gave Charlie the gift we had ready for him and he loved it, as I expected.

I copied this from something I saw on Tip Junkie (which is a great place for ideas). My original plan included some scrapbook paper behind the pictures, and some sort of simple scroll design on the ends, but that didn’t work out. I think it’s a bit faux-nail-head heavy, and I learned a bit about how not to use ModPodge, and ink-jet printed photos should be varnished before they are used in a craft project. But the pictures were the point, and they are loved, so I’m happy.