Studio Purge Continues

Well the good news is I've made a lot of progress in the studio.  The bad news is now I'm cleaning, purging, and organizing about seven different things at once and it wasn't intentional but its a necessary evil.

I'm at the point where I moved my thread cabinets off of the big shelves and onto the cubbies, this is temporary until the place where I really want to live is freed up, but that space is currently occupied with stuff that either needed to go onto the big shelves or be given away.

I'm getting there, thank heavens!  When all is said and done the artwork right there in front of the cubbies, you know living on my studio floor, will soon have a home on the big shelves.  But first I must move my massive paint collection out of the blue dresser and onto the carts, and then the fabric living on the big shelves, well most of it anyway, can go live in the blue dresser.

Make sense?  Me neither.  I hope to have an update by this coming weekend.  The only thing standing in my way at the moment is the fact that the studio floor needs vacuuming before I can proceed any further.  And there is a huge dog sleeping in the middle of said floor.

Oliver, my faithful studio assistant who doubles as a paper weight.

Pepper Files: Hiding from the Dog

Pepper blending in with my natural dyed fabrics in a basket in my studio, hoping Oliver won't notice him.

Oliver Files ~ Sick Puppy

He's been one sick puppy today, am not sure what he got into yesterday or last night, whatever it was it seems to be slowly working it's way out of his system.

Mean while... back at the studio... I cleaned an area in my studio so I can pack up my artwork for a solo show I'm hanging this weekend.  You can learn more about this upcoming show at my studio blog.

Oliver Files New Squeek Toy

A VERY blurry photo of a very happy Oliver with a brand new squeek toy that won't get lost under the china cupboard or the sofa!  All is well it's soft enough for him to squeek to his hearts delight!

Oliver Files: The Chair

If you ask Oliver the chair belongs to him, not me, he's not spoiled one bit, no he's not!!!

Oliver Files: The Watcher

This is the hurry up and pick out those hexagons stare, he finally gave up and went to sleep.  He really wants to play with my fabrics, and trims which wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't so insistent on shredding everything.

Said hexagons, the smaller ones were dyed with natural dyes the deep red obtained using a turkey red recipe, the blue using indigo. See my natural dyeing blog for more information.

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He's practicing for his full time job as professional door stop!

He's uncertain as to which side is his "good" side.

Oliver Files: The Family Room

Or maybe I should say his play room?  This is what the floor looked like before I went to sleep last night, in fact the rubber chicken is still stuck to the chair, where he left it!  You'd never know that the day started out with the floor clean and all of his toys in the bucket.  Angel doesn't seem to be bothered by much of this so I guess all is good.

A close up of the rubber chicken stuck to the chair.  Oliver loves shredding paper, so we've learned.

Late Last Night

A man and his dog hanging out in the family room.

Oliver napping in my chair.

Studio Delimma

Delimma:  How to keep Oliver out of my sewing area when I'm not using that space???  The chair with the pile of stuff is the current gate for my sewing studio, it's butted up against my spinning wheel which is butted up against a Singer sewing machine cabinet.  This all to keep a curious puppy safe.  A baby gate won't work in this situation since there is nothing to really attach it too. so am looking for creative ideas.

Snug as a Bug

Oliver all tucked in, and all on his own, for a long winters nap in my chair.

Oliver Files - A New Blankie!!!

 

 

Winter is coming on here in central Iowa and at some point we're going to have to put a bed in his crate so he will stay warm during the night; we keep the house at 58F during the night.

 

He was being a pest earlier so I decided to perform a social experiment with him, lock him in his crate with a polar fleece blanket, to see what his reaction would be.  He did good, he spent a few minutes rearranging the blanket and proceeded to go to sleep.  This is good because I was concerned about him shredding his new dog bed that I'll be making for him; basic polar fleece with polyfill inside to give him a couple of inches between him and the metal floor of the crate. 

 

In case your worried about his being isolated during the day while in his crate, don't I'm a full five feet away from his crate working on the computer plus he won't be in there for long, during the day he spends anywhere from five minutes to four hours in there all depending on what errands I have to run.

 

I just wanted to see what his reaction was to the blanket, it took Angel a good five years before she would tolerate anything in her crate other than her food bowl, we'd give her a blanket and in the morning find it outside of her crate and her sleeping on her back legs straight up in the air!  Now she sleeps on a polar fleece dog bed I made for her, again with the legs straight up in the air.

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John just measured Oliver's  height, he's 26" at the shoulders and he's not done growing yet!

Oliver Files Week Six - I Think

His favorite place in the house is the family room surrounded by his toys and with Angel of course.

Here he is still sorta damp after his walk in the pouring down rain.  I love his coat, like Angels it dries and very quickly.

We're still learning to not pick on Pepper, Thomas can hold his own and for the most part Oliver is scared of Thomas.

He matches the rug and quite well, don't you think!

My princess, Angel.

Last but not least, Thomas who still refuses to hang out in the family room since Oliver arrived, but it's only been six weeks and he's finally coming into the kitchen again. 

Bad Dog...

Gahhhhhhhhhhhh just got back from a walk and a viscious attack from the neighbors dog, damned thing bit Oliver on the nads and bit me too for good measure. Since the dog is still lose animal control is on their way to deal with the dog and the owner. 

I inspected Oliver and he's not bleeding but he's not happy either.  Poor Ollie and here he was under the impression that all dogs are nice and are for playing with!

Angel and Oliver Hanging Out

Taken this past Sunday, hanging out while John chips branches, etc.  They were fascinated by the activity.

Angel

Angel - hanging out on the front porch watching the traffic go by.

Oliver

Oliver, nine months old last Thursday!

Oliver's Run Part One

Before, this is my garden that literally went to seed and to the weeds, this summer.  John mowed almost everything down, and now there's room for the new, to Oliver, dog run.  Our neighbor, Praise God, is giving us their dog run to add to our dog run so it'll go from being 12x16x6 feet to that size plus another 12x8x6 feet, I think it may actually be larger than that, we'll know for sure tomorrow once we have it all set up.

After, a few native plants were spared the lawn mower blade. Specifically the milkweed and the two white plastic buckets, which have their bottoms removed, are protecting my prairie dye plants.

Will post more photos tomorrow once we get the dog run up and usable.

Day Six - Morning Six

Day Six it took less than an hour this morning for Oliver to calm down once he was out of his crate.  Hyper doesn't even begin to describe his energy levels!  If I can get him to sit still long enough I'll take a photo of his face, we trimmed his "bangs" last night so they no longer hang in  his eyes.  He has very pretty eyes!