Category Archives: Dogs

Canvassing for Canvas

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I traveled to Santa Fe in July to take a thread painting class from Jennifer Day. There were seven students from six states: New Mexico (2 students), Washington State (1), Illinois (1), Arizona (1), Utah (1), Texas (me!). Our mascot was B Bear, Jennifer’s dog.

B Bear, an Old English Sheepdog, mascot of the class

B Bear

The first day in class we all worked on the same project (B Bear) to familiarize ourselves with the free-motion quilting needed for a thread portrait. We chose our threads and off we went to the sewing machines. The quilt “sandwich” was layered (top-to-bottom) with B Bear’s photo (printed on special printer paper/fabric that can go through an inkjet printer), canvas, batting, and backing fabric. The canvas is there as a stabilizer. This type of art uses thread as its painting medium and it is usually heavily stitched. A stabilizer is needed to prevent puckering. Nothing worse than a puckered thread painting, right?

Jennifer has worked with 18-ounce canvas (too heavy), 10-ounce (too light) and settled on 15-ounce (just right). She provided a list online resources as a class handouts, but also mentioned that the Santa Fe art supply store, Artisan, carried it on a roll. Thursday afternoon Mary Anne, Jan A., and I decide to check it out.

B Bear (a thread painting in progress), looking a little surprised

B Bear looking a little surprised (my in-progress, practice thread portrait)

Artisan did, indeed, carry canvas on a roll in a couple of widths and couple of weights, but no 15-ounce. They had 14-ounce canvas, which we thought would be okay. However, the customer immediately before us bought the last of the roll of the 60-inch, 14-ounce canvas, but they still had the 84-inch roll.

Mary Anne, Jan A., and I decided we would wait until we returned home to buy canvas. That way we wouldn’t have to worry about folding it up and creasing it on our trip home. And, we figured, we all live near a big city so we should be able to find it at our own local art supply stores, right?

That was optimistic on my part, it turns out.

Once back in central Texas, I let my fingers do the walking through the Internet listings for art stores in Austin and called four, plus one fabric store with home decoration fabrics. Does anyone have 15-ounce canvas on the roll? No. Do they have any canvas on a roll? Only one and it has 12-ounce canvas. Hmm. Not sure about that, as it’s between being “too light” and “just right.”

Everyone's in-progress B Bear thread portrait

Everyone’s in-progress B Bear thread portrait

What’s up with that? Santa Fe, New Mexico, has about 70,000 people (according to Wikipedia). Austin proper has over 900,000 residents and the Austin metro area is well over one million. The University of Texas at Austin has a student population that hovers around 50,000. UT has an art school. There are several other universities and colleges in town. We have the Laguna Gloria art school. We have the Texas legislature. Don’t they need canvas for something?

I can’t get 15-ounce canvas (or even 14-ounce) canvas from a roll locally but people in Santa Fe can? So it’s true: it’s all about location, location, location.

Paws: Black & White

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Poor Abby. One morning her paw was swollen and she didn’t want to put any weight on it. We checked it out but couldn’t see anything. No sticker, no wound of any kind. The next morning it was even more swollen so off to the vet’s office we went. They had to put her under just a little bit to take x-rays, open it up, and clean it out. They didn’t find anything so we still don’t know what the problem was. We brought Abby home with her paw all wrapped up because they inserted a drain into the abscessed area and it needed to stay there five days.

All wrapped up with nowhere to go

All wrapped up with nowhere to go

Abby was really good-natured about it. Once the pain was gone she was bouncing around again. We protected the wrapping from the morning dew by adding an extra plastic layer. The wrapping and the plastic didn’t bother her any. We took her back to the vet to get the drain removed and all is well again. Happy Abby with normal paws.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Hands, Feet, or Paws

Serious Stuff

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I came home one day in late May to find a bat in a jar on the kitchen counter.

Before I got home, hubby noticed our dog, Abby, checking out something on the back porch in the middle of the afternoon. It turned out to be this bat. The “middle of the afternoon” is the bad part, as bats should not be out and about in the sunlight. If they are, it could be a sign of trouble.

Bat in a jar

You can look but don’t touch

Hubby called Abby away, put up the dogs, and captured the bat in the jar without touching it (very important). Abby was current on her vaccines but as a precaution we took her to the vet for a booster rabies shot. We also took the bat in a jar. The vet staff killed the bat and boxed it up for us to take to the health department. (The health department does not accept live bats for testing.) This was late Tuesday afternoon, so hubby took the boxed-up bat to the health department in Austin first thing Wednesday morning.

Thursday the health department calls us to report that the bat tested positive for rabies. Off we go, back to the vet, taking the other two dogs (also current on their vaccines) to get a booster rabies shot.

What we don’t know is if any of the dogs actually touched the bat. Hubby saw Abby looking at it, but who knows what when on before he discovered what she was investigating.

Protocol requires that the dogs be isolated. Our three dogs stayed home for 45 days and we kept Abby separate from the other two, as well. (If they hadn’t been current on their vaccines before finding the bat, it would have been a 90-day isolation time frame.)

I fretted a little. Rabies is serious stuff and there are no do-overs. It’s not like getting the flu where you can decide to go to the doctor after you’ve been feeling bad for a while. No, rabies is something you have to prevent. The woman at the health department answered all our questions and indicated that we (the humans) were not considered at risk or exposed as we hadn’t touched the bat at all.

Good news: The isolation period ended July 10th and all is well with all the dogs. We haven’t found any more bats, either.

Dusty’s Toys

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Dusty and some of his toys. Actually, these toys belong to all the dogs, but Clint and Dusty like them the most. Even when all these toys are in the living room, both Clint and Dusty will head for the big bowl where we store them in another room, bypassing all the available toys on the floor.

Some of Dusty's toys

Some of Dusty’s toys