Dogs and Delectable Delights

I'm in the midst of 2 quilt projects, both of which I hope to finish in the next couple of days. Once they're in the hands of their recipients, I'll post pictures. I'm also hoping to get a few holiday gift coasters made in the next 2 days. It'll be a busy 2 days of crafting.


But I have a loyal furry friend nearby: he pushed his pillow under the table with my sewing machine to create a cave for himself. Speaking of Max, most nights he heads into his crate by himself and contentedly (I assume) sleeps there until morning.

Unless he hears something.

Like my roommate ascending the back staircase and entering the apartment in the middle of the night.

Then he has to bark to, you know, protect me from intruders with keys to the apartment.

But I digress. Last night he was still awake when I went to bed. This was my fault as I went to see Australia (a pretty good settler colony/WWII epic, if really two movies squished into one) and only took him for his evening constitutional at 11.30 pm. So he was awake when I went to my room to sleep. As I read a book in bed, I heard a certain creature breathing/snoring outside my door.

Yep, Max decided that he wasn't tired enough for his crate and sprawled his 75 pounds outside my door. The thing is, I know what he was trying to do. He was trying to be cute enough to be let inside the bedroom. But I've only given into that trick once, the night before I moved away from Madison. He'll probably be successful at the trick again, on his last night with me here. But until then, he gets led back to his crate where I found him still asleep this morning. It's pretty gray and ugly, so he has the right idea.

Aside from the Max story, I can offer you two delectable delights.
1) Custom, stylish, and vegetarian bags from Laura Bee Designs

I'm particularly fond of Chelsea at the moment. And you can learn more about Laura Bee at their blog. I wonder if Laura Bee is related to Queen Bee? I didn't find anything in FAQs suggesting a connection to the Portland-based non-custom but still very cool vegetarian bag company. (Go vinyl!). * I have a kickin' whale wallet but it seems that it is no longer being made. But the velocity tote is pretty fun.

[Ironically, for all my bag lust, I use the same backpack--free gifts are great--almost every day.]

And thanks to Claire for the the Laura Bee link.

*And Torie points out that vinyl is bad, very bad for the environment. Shoot. There goes some nice non-leather bag options. But QueenBee does make some cool felted wool items, made of ReWool which comes from recycled textiles.

2. Petebakes offers a soft pretzel recipe today. Yum. And I do love mustard, all sorts of mustard, on my soft pretzels.