Helping Shelter dogs (with a little help from my shelter dog)

http://www.pedigreefoundation.org/



Pedigree started a campaign a few weeks ago to help provide much needed food to shelters around the country.  For every blog post about the campaign, they will donate a bag of dog food to a shelter in need.

My beloved Sir Winston Piccolo came to me from a shelter, after his owner died and their family didn't want the responsibility of a dog. He was so terrified that he wouldn't come out from his corner and was about to be moved to the euthanize list when he was pulled by Tavia Meares of Middle Tennessee Corgi Rescue and brought to me in Kentucky.  Winston Then:


The first day we brought him home






 And Winston Now:

  Basking in the backyard

 Greeting visitors at our cabin on vacation

He's even enough of a mamma's boy to let me dress him up on occasion:

Being forced to dress as Aramis for halloween as part of the three Corgiteers

 (hey, his Sister had to dress as Porthos, while Dad was Athos)

Every dog deserves to be loved, cherished and occasionally mortified as Sir Winston has.

Two day Steampunk

I thought I was going to have more time for this costume, but it turned out quite well despite my crazy week:

I didn't get a better picture because I was having too much fun to ask people to take my own picture!

The Skirt is made from 6 of my husband's worn out dress shirts which i cut into gores and sewed together. The shirt is a thrift store find that I've used before, and I cannot say how much I love this piece - great lace detailing, pin tucks and fun buttons - such a great find!   Though you can't see it, I'm also wearing a great ruffled petticoat that I made from a bed sheet. 

It's official, if I'm going to keep doing steampunk work, I need to invest in a ruffler foot for my new Pfaff machine because it takes waaay too much time to do all that gathering by hand.

I am of course wearing my fabulous tailor's cuff from R.H. Mardigan, since no travelling seamstress should be without her tools and my wonderful goggles that my husband made for my following the tutorial on Epbot.com (http://www.epbot.com/2011/07/how-to-make-steampunk-goggles.html)

My corset, which you can't see very well is a version of a pattern I've used before, but because it was going to be so hot this weekend, I adapted it to make it lighter in weight and a looser fit than I might otherwise have gone for. The fabric for this came from a skirt that ended up just not fitting right despite its fabulous suede texture and some leftover shop fabric - too little to do much else with, but enough to make some panels out of.

I'm going to be putting together some more detailed shots of my various accessories, and a full body shot of the skirt to show how all the panels went together.

Stay tuned!