April 2, 2009

After getting three hours of sleep my alarm woke me up in time for Kasey and I to get to her grooming appointment. I decided to take her to an actual groomer instead of just getting her a bath this month because the cottony "fuzzies," as I call them, have grown down the sides of her legs and have cropped up behind her ears. She looks like she has a lion's mane. Because of her delight in and addiction of rolling in leaves, she comes inside with a veritable forest still clinging to her! It's gotta stop!

I went to the library on my way home to pick up two books I had on hold and then returned to the house. After reading email and watching television for a couple hours, it was finally time to go pick up my Punky.

We will NOT be going back! This is the same groomer who did a wonderful job on Kasey 2 1/2 years ago, but this time she did too much. I wanted her to take the "cottony fuzzies" that have appeared on her legs and behind her ears. You can clearly see and feel them; they're on the outside of her legs and behind her ears and they're almost stark white.

Instead, she trimmed Kasey ALL OVER! She even cut her tail, which was about 9-12" long, to about 3-4". She cut all the curls from around Kasey's neck, cut the feathering on the back of her legs, and cut the hair on her sides and belly! None of her hair, besides her tail, is more than 2 inches long! Plus, she didn't get rid of the fuzzies on the sides of Kasey's legs! They've just been clipped to about 3/4". I think the fact that they clipped her ears is the most visible; I hate it! Her ears used to flow into the hair on her neck and now they're delineated.

I almost screamed when I saw my poor girl! I wasn't going to let Kasey know she wasn't the prettiest girl in all the world, but I am T-TOTALLY TICKED OFF! It's going to take months for her hair to grow back out, and even longer for her tail to get back to its normal length. I've included "before" and "after" pictures for you.

I know alot of people won't see a big difference, but having worked professionally with dogs for half my life, I see every little nuance. She's still a gorgeous girl, but her cut detracts from her looks. To me, it's sacrelige to cut a dog's tail short when it's grown out long and flowing. The same goes for ears.

Okay, enough. I'll just get worked up all over again.

So, stitching...Yes, I did some today. I finished the first leaf and did the second one today. I did a total of 10 1/4 stitches today! *groan*

We went to our usual Thursday afternoon stitching group at the Barnes & Noble cafe' and had a very nice time. Yarn workers in this area are getting ready for the Maryland Sheep and Wool festival, which is the same weekend as the Ocean City retreat, so it was a popular topic for conversation around the table. I really enjoy all the chatter because I learn alot. I've heard of a few different yarn shops in the region that also sell needlepoint or cross stitch items. As you can see, I did more talking and listening today than actual stitching.

I have to tell you, too, that I think I've figured out the problem with the floss in my Sweetheart Tree kits: I think it's dried out. It's getting more supple and softer as it's handled, so I think I'm going to hang it in the bathroom and run the humidifier for a little while this weekend. It's been sitting in the bag in my stash cabinet for over a year. I bought all my Sweetheart Tree kits at the same time, so maybe that's why all of the cotton floss has the same feel.

I received an email from Sandie Vanosdall of The Sweetheart Tree in response to yesterday's post. I apologized to Sandie in case I offended her and let her know that I do alot of "thinking out loud" here on Crossed Purposes. This is what she had to say about the WDW and DMC she uses to kit up her designs:

I 100% guarantee that we do not do a thing to the floss used in our kits to change the feel of them - this is exactly the way they come to us from DMC and from Weeks. We use those 2 fibers for certain reasons.....DMC is the #1 most available fiber(worldwide) and it is available to us on a "cone" which contains 1000's of yards of floss. Weeks has a great color range and is also available on a cone - plus I've come to know the owner of Weeks quite well and want to support her when I have a design that works well with one of her colors. I do use other fiber companies as well...Caron Collection, ThreadworX, DinkyDyes, Crescent Colors, etc....whatever works best with the design is what we will specify and use. Since we kit SO many patterns it's obviously easiest and most time efficient for us to pull the floss off of the cones rather than try to unwind and separate the floss from skeins.

OMG, CONES! Thousands of YARDS of floss! How cool is that?! Can you imagine? You'd NEVER have to buy floss again! I want my own collection of cones!

But seriously, I very much appreciate Sandie's email. I was thinking further about the drying issue and I think I could have stated things a little better in my post. I didn't mean to insinuate that TST was doing anything to the floss; what was in my head was "what is happening to it that it feels this way? I know how DMC and WDW feel when I buy them, so there has to be a reason this is occurring." I sincerely apologize for any offense I caused.

Sandie also said:

I wish you could see how this is done and perhaps I'll photograph our gals in the process of making kits someday and post it on our website so you and other stitchers can see how kits are made

I told her I'd love to see that; it'd be really neat. What do you think? I'm still thinking of all those cones y'all and I am SO jealous! I think I'm gonna go to bed and dream about a room of 'em.