Craft Weekend Day 2

Day 1 of Craft weekend was so fun! We woke up at the crack of dawn on Saturday and crafted all day and into the night. :)

When we finally fell into bed, the moon was full and shining brightly, and it was still there watching over us on Sunday morning when we woke up again before dawn.

Melly and I are both very early risers so it was so fun to have someone to talk to so early. I usually get up before Fred and the pug and make breakfast for both of them and call their sleepy heads down to the kitchen.

Melly and I both just popped up at 5am and started crafting! It was so fun! Just like when we were kids. We shared a room when we were little and would get up early and play for hours before our parents woke up. I had forgotten about that until this weekend.

After breakfast, we started two more hangers and then took a break to crochet.


I worked on my new bear for The Mother Bear Project and Melanie worked on her squares for the afghan she is making. I taught her how to make my favorite flower squares.

Ta Da!

She got them all done! The next step is to lay out the daisy squares, traditional granny squares, and bobble squares and sew them together into a blanket! I will keep you posted as we do this in the coming weeks.

When Melanie was not crocheting or working on our hangers, she was sewing wool teddy bears together.

Look how wonderful they are!

They just need stuffing, bow ties and needle felted faces!

I will show them to you soon when they are all done.

We stayed as long as we could on Sunday before driving through the mountains back home to Boulder. It even snowed on us a little bit on the highest pass before our descent into the rain. They were my first snowflakes of the year.

Melanie lives about 1500 feet above Boulder in the foothills so she has already gotten some snow at her house this year. :)

I hope to have Emmitt's sweater all done before our first snow. I will show it to you again as soon as it is done.

Thanks for tuning in to see what we made on our craft weekend. We plan to have another one in November. I promise to take you along again and show you what we make!

I also wanted to let you know that our internet service has been up and down this week because the city is ripping up the streets in our neighborhood. :) The fun news is that our streets and sidewalks are going to look all shiny and new!

I promise to get all caught up on everyone's posts as soon as the internet fairies give us a portal of consistent connect time! Heee! :)

Maybe Emmitt and I will get to sneak our paw prints into a corner of one of the squares. Shhhh! Don't tell anyone!

Have a wonderful day everyone!

Craft Weekend Day 1

Hi everyone!

Here we are in front of Mel's home in Winter Park, CO.

As you can see, we are in our new sweaters I made for the occasion, ready to craft!

Let's go inside!

The first project we made together was these cool wrapped hangers from a free pattern I found on Lion Brand Yarn.

We had so much fun making them! It was like we were little girls at summer camp again.

We each finished one the first day and plan to make more so our closets are full of them. They are very fun and relaxing to make using plastic hangers, cotton yarn and a tiny bit of Elmer's glue to finish off the loose ends.

Emmitt already showed you the second project I started. I am crocheting him a sweater! I have never done this before, so I am making it up as I go. So far, my plan is to sew the bobble square front to the pug rectangle back leaving head and arm holes to shove the pug into and through. Since I did not have Emmitt with me on craft weekend, I had to stop to see if I had the right sizes made.

He does not know it yet, but he has a few fittings in his future. I promise not to stick him with any pins, and I will show you the finished sweater as soon as it is done! :)

Here it is all squished up inside its little project bag waiting to come home to the puggy.

Tomorrow, I will show you Day 2 of Craft Weekend when Melanie worked on sewing her wool bears, I started the Mother Bear Project bear that Emmitt also showed you yesterday and last but not least, the wonderful crocheted afghan that I am teaching Melanie to make!

Please Stay Tuned!

I cannot wait to see what you all have been up to. I am a little behind on posts, but I will be getting caught up all week!

xoxoxo

Melissa

Mother Bear Sighting in Africa!

Hi Everyone!

Emmitt here to tell you that another one of my bear friends that I helped my mom make for The Mother Bear Project appeared in a photo in his new home in Africa with his little girl!

Here I am singing to the little bears before sending them off last March.

and here is the blue pajama bear with this beautiful little girl!


How wonderful!

Exciting News!

One of the projects that Mom started on craft weekend was to crochet a new bear for the Mother Bear Project .

Here is a picture of him so far and in his little project bag to come home to be finished.

I cannot wait until he is done so I can give him a hug and send him on his way to make someone happy!

The other bag has a sweater in it that she is making for me! More on that project tomorrow!

xoxoxoxo

Emmitt

A Life Saver and a Winner!

Hi Everyone!

Happy Monday!

We are back from Craft Weekend and Melanie and I had a fabulous time!

I cannot wait to show you this week what we made!

But before I show you what I made even before leaving for Craft Weekend or announcing a Winner for the Pug Fabric Buttons, I have to tell you about a complete Life Saver!

For the last couple of years, I have backed up my computer automatically everyday on an online system called Carbonite. It stores your files off site in case of a catastrophic event to your computer. It saves all of your files so that you can do a complete restore if you need too. Gulp!

I have at times needed to restore a file I messed up or even had a partial hard drive failure that I needed to restore a few damaged files, but I have never had a complete melt down.

Well, Thursday afternoon changed all that! I was happily working on my computer when the screen went completely black and a burning smell filled the room. My husband (being a computer guy and not completely in shock) smartly unplugged the computer and found that the power supply had failed sending a million, zillion volts through the motherboard, which then continued to fry my hard drive! A complete system failure! Oh NOOOOOoooo!

If I did not have Carbonite, I would have lost everything! All of my websites, art files, photos of Emmitt ~ just everything! My whole life really!

But because everything was backed up, I was surprisingly totally calm! Fred helped me pick out and buy a new computer that evening and then we set up the restore function to put all my files back on my beautiful new computer. Within one day, I was totally back up an running!

I am so grateful that I had a system in place that really saved me. It is only about $50/year and totally worth every penny. Even if I never need to restore another file, I will always have a system like this in place for the just in case moment! I had to share that story with you so you could be prepared too. I love Carbonite because even I can use it! It is super user friendly and is continually backing up your system behind the scenes. You do not even have to schedule it!

And Now for the Winner of the Pug Fabric Button Giveaway #2!

Congratulations to...

Kelly of Pug(s) and Bugg!

Please email me your address Kelly and I will send them off right away! :)

The fun continues... I will have another Pug Fabric Button Giveaway soon!

Melanie and I had the best time at craft weekend! I have lots of pictures of the projects we made. I will get them organized and show them to you this week.

In anticipation of this wonderful retreat, I made Melanie and I each a crocheted bobble sweater to wear all weekend while we were crafting. :) It was a surprise to Mel and so hard to keep from her.

She was so excited when I pulled them out of my bag!

Here is my sweater...







and here is Melanie's!

I made hers with a little corgi on the front just like her Moe!

How fun!

We both smiled and put on our sweaters as fast as we could!

Let the crafting begin!

And boy did it ever!

There was yarn, thread, fabric, needles, crochet hooks, teddy bear parts, stuffing and more all over her house for 3 days!

I cannot wait to show you this week what we made!

xoxoxoxo

Melissa

Pug Fabric Button Giveaway #2

I just made this cute set of fabric buttons from my "Groovy Pugs" fabric line, and I would love to give them to you!

They are 1" in diameter and would be pefect to sew or glue onto any clothing, bag, dog collar or art project that you would like!

It is easy to enter the drawing!

All you have to do is leave one comment on this post and you will be entered into the drawing. Entries will be open until Sunday October 4th at 3:00 pm MST. One winner will be chosen through random.org and announced on Monday, October 5th.

How Fun!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone and thank you so much for playing!

Melanie and I are on our way to Winter Park, CO for another fun craft weekend together at her house.

I will show you lots of pictures next week of what we create!

Pug Notes Newsletter ~ Fall 2009

The Pug Notes Newsletter ~ Fall 2009 is now online for your reading pleasure!

Emmitt and I are so excited to share it with you!

It is jam packed with fun news, photos, events, recipes, customer photos and more!

Meet The Pugs!


Get the Fall Recipe ~ Salmon Rice Balls!

and see Emmitt enjoy them all!

Yummy!

If you would like a copy of the Newsletter to be emailed to you every quarter, please just email me anytime or sign up in the green outlined box at the top left corner of the blog. :)

Emmitt and I would also love to feature your pugs and recipes in the upcoming newsletters so please send us pics and recipes anytime you want to!

Have a wonderful day!

Happy October 1st!

xoxoxo

Melissa and Emmitt

The Quilt-A-Fair Show 2009

What a fabulous weekend!

Not only did we have a great time at the pug party on Sunday, but Quilt-A-Fair in Longmont, CO was on Saturday! It is one of Melanie and my favorite shows to go to every year.

There were gorgous quilts everywhere!

... and so many wonderful kits, buttons, yards of fabric, fat quarters, ribbons, sewing machines and vintage textiles that we were in heaven!

We bought this cute zipper pouch pattern kit to inspire us to learn how to sew in zippers!

... and lots of new fabrics to play with!

I am excited to make more fabric journals out of these.

The show was filled with people as soon as the doors opened at 9am!

There was so much to see and do. I even found some dog themed quilts!

The dog appliques were made from this wonderful book!

I will have to try and do that one of these days! I have it saved to my wish list.

What a great time!

Melanie and I laugh at these pictures we take of ourselves at every event. We huddle together and I hold my arm out as long as I can to get us in and not chop off our heads.

I need longer arms or to convince Mark and Fred to come to the craft shows with us.

Hmmmm... I think the arm growing idea is more likely. :)

I will have lots more pics to show you next week of Melanie and I crafting. We are leaving on Friday for a 3 day craft retreat to her mountain house. I cannot wait!

Happy Wednesday everyone!