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.

Today's Studio Help

Pepper keeping my sketchbooks organized.

Oliver keeping my feet company.

And birds at the bird feeders this afternoon.

Cooler temps, fall has arrived.

Angels Nest

It's one hot mess, yeah I know this, but don't even try to remove the "nest".  Oliver made this nest for Angel, yeah my 78 pound labradoodle really did this!  And if we remove it he only brings in more stuff for the old one to sleep on, which at this point is fine because I don't have to worry about her trying to get up or down from the sofa and hurting herself in the process.

There's a part of me that'd like to believe that Oliver feels guilty for having destroyed Angels princess bed and this is why he keeps making nests for her, but we all know that's not the case.

We're still hand feeding her, and she's become quite picky with some days not eating at all.  I've been blessed in that my neighbors help me out with her from time to time, like when I have to go places, and they have experience with an elderly dog whose time upon this earth is growing short. 

She's been with us nine years today, yes I got her on my birthday nine years ago she was a rescue, its hard to believe as the time has passed and quickly, her actual age is somewhere around 15/16 years.

Studio Help

Or not so much. Oliver waiting in his kennel, he goes in there when I'm working at my drawing table on projects.  Actually I'm really glad he likes his kennel!

Angel is still with us, I thought for sure she was done for a week ago as I hadn't seen any evidence that she had been eating, etc.  Well it turns out she's been shimming under the gate and has been eating the cats food.  So I raised the gate up a bit so she wouldn't have to shimmy as much.

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: After the Storm

Oliver and his ball.  We experienced a large amount of hail today, golf ball sized hail and discovered Oliver is scared of hail!

Excuse the mess this is the "nest" he made today between the dining and family rooms, he's a very busy dog that loves to build nests and each nest requires shredded paper.  Yes he has a crate and a blanket for his crate but nothing rocks his world more than a fresh nest!

The hail was about the size of grapes when it first started falling.

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.

Oliver Files ~ While You Were Out

I started to feel sick on Sunday, my early Monday morning it was obvious I had picked up noro virus someplace.  I'm only starting to feel slightly better today.  This is what Oliver accomplished while I was holing up in our bedroom with the cats.  He's been busy.

Oliver Files: Time Out for Oliver

Time out for Oliver, and of course Angel goes into his crate and won't come out so both got locked inside. He has a fascination with laundry, ie fetching it and then shredding it to pieces preferably while I'm on the phone. They both fell asleep in his crate.

Angel started nodding off at this point, she spent the last two years of Silky's life (our Weimeraner) sleeping in her crate with her so it's not surprising she's sleeping in his crate now.

Oliver Files 021914

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

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

The Oliver Files: Wanna Dance?

John and Oliver play dancing in my studio while I was stitching away and Angel observed.

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.

Oliver and Angel

Their waiting for their helping of John's homemade spagetti sauce!

Late Last Night

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

Oliver napping in my chair.

Snug as a Bug

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

Oliver Update 112113

 

He's feeling much better today to the point that he's been a pest preventing me from finishing up some very important projects. Here he is laying on my studio floor, after nine straight hours of pestering me, finally taking a nap. 

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.