The Cover Girl and the Centerfold

I guess that post title has you wondering..... then this will add to the mystery!

Yup, we put the house back on the market and crossing fingers and toes that it sells! We need  a much smaller yard and a slightly larger house. This way we can fit both our hobbies under one roof!  It sure would be nice to get a fenced back yard too so even the dog has a place to call her own. We've had a viewing and another today so there's plenty of primping and 'spit and polish' cleaning going on around here!
The sun has come out, the rain soaked ground is starting to dry out and the flowers are out to greet the viewers:

We have  made an offer on another house, which they have accepted, subject to the sale of our present home, so the pressure is on! I'm going to hold off on telling you about the new place until we have a firm deal in place. Call me superstitious. We had another  house deal last fall that fizzled out so you'll just have to take your clues from my first paragraph for now.  :)

We have had Calli five going on six weeks now and we seem to have settled into a daily routine. She seems to be relaxed with us and sometimes, a bit too much so. We have scheduled her into an obedience class which starts April 3rd for six sessions. We also want her to spend more time around other dogs in a controlled setting. The neighbour has a large mixed breed dog which charged at us on our walk the other day and we had a little 'situation'. Their fence stopped the charge thankfully but it sure set off Calli. Raised my blood pressure some too.  Since then we have met other dogs and she now reacts the same way so its a fear/ anxiety aggression thing. So we are going to school to nip this in the bud right now. Hopefully this will work! She came from a home with other dogs and also visiting dogs so this is a new behavior change.

She's really sweet and very affectionate and the house is full of toys again. She loves to fetch and play with balls!  Some she loves a little too hard:

Better than my shoes again!   I can recall Bruce's Airedale Samson sleeping on his back under the plum tree in the summer time and it seems to be a sleeping pose that the breed in general does! Meet our 'centerfold' gal :

 We're trying to watch the TV and she's, um, 'performing' ! Her bikini shave is growing back in since her spaying! She even sleeps in her kennel like this too. All we see is some straight legs sticking out of the door way.

Well, as you can imagine with all this going on, including annual tax time,  weaving has taken a bit of  back seat, but there has been some progress on that front. A new base 'special ordered' for my weaving chair finally arrived and has been installed. It was a bit nerve wracking to spend a lot of money on something we couldn't take back if it didn't work. I'm happy to report that at the lowest height setting of 22 inches for the Louet.... it WORKS!

I just set it as low as it will go and get busy! No more pile of pillows to boost me up. That foot ring sure comes in handy when it's higher. Here's the full height:

You need a stepping stool to hoist yourself up! This is it way up at the top of 32 inches. All I need for the Woolhouse Tools CM is 27 inches:

Here you can see the old bench and the new seat. My weight depresses the chair down a bit. The soft edge of the chair will mean I can weave here again! Once the scarves are off the Louet, I plan to sit here and weave away on the towels while I wind the next warp for the Spring.  I'm still being careful with my back and only weaving for short periods. I am doing my exercises on the big inflatable ball daily to strengthen my core support muscles. The problem is, it's a BALL and we have a dog that is ball crazy, so this is where it's stored when not in use.

 Too funny!  Meanwhile I have sold my Woolhouse commuter loom bench to a local newbie weaver but I did decide to keep the one that came with my big loom so to keep it a set for the day when it moves on to a new home. But not for a long, long time!

So Covergirl? well, I told you how I was awarded the Founders Fund Scholarship by the Guild of Canadian Weavers this past November. (The GCW is about to overhaul their web page and make it more modern but for now, the basics are there.) I was required to write a brief article on the workshop and send along some pictures to supplement the piece. Imagine my surprise when I opened the envelope with the newsletter and saw this:

Yup, my picture is on the cover! and the story is inside...

There was an additional pleasant surprise when I found a neat article on blogging by Lynnette!  Click on any picture to enlarge:

One appeal of being a member of this national guild are the real samples that accompany the newsletter. Each year a group or guild agrees to make the samples, usually with a theme. The Manitoban weavers this year are featuring summer and winter and this one is planned for a baby blanket :

You can read all about the new exchange for 2011 at   DustBunnies. You do need to be a guild member to participate but there are loads of benefits. There was also a colour insert featuring the last exchange for 2010. You wove a scarf and got one back! How simple is that?  :)

Lynnette did a wonderful job of showcasing everyone's efforts and I will be signing up yet again! Exchanges are a lot of fun!

So this was a real mixed bag of tricks for you this time round.... but with spring here now, it's time for some changes.