Sunday, September 2, 2007

Beef puffs and silk



Eureka! Conner had a major breakthrough. Both ends of the couch work well! You can indeed get on and off the couches on either end. So, it is no longer necessary to climb over me when I am occupying the "correct" end of the couch. Finally.
The next obstacle is a beef puff. It is a chew which is made from a cow's ear--I know, I don't like to think about that either. Allie LOVES her beef chew. She understands the concept of chewing it. What she doesn't understand is the concept of taking a breath while devouring it. She is also less than charming to Conner if he gets anywhere in her vicinity while she is exercising her jaws with one of these. Conner, on the other hand, likes to stand and watch Allie chew the beef puff. I suppose he is trying to learn how to do it as his sits on the floor untouched.
The interesting part is that if you swap the beef puffs, Allie is thrilled to have a fresh one and Conner will actually chew the one that Allie used to have. Go figure. Apparently it has to have the Allie seal of spit on it to be acceptable, or in this case, chewable.
On a fiber note: Had a wonderful time making a birthday present for a friend this week. I used paintsticks on a silk scarf and was fairly pleased with the results. I rubbed several different colors over texture plates and then also rubbed over a stamp of a leaf to get a more solid design.. I used 3 different blues, a metallic gold, and a rust made from brown and orange for the scarf. The paints didn't really go through to the other side of the scarf so I did different textures on the back side of the scarf with some of the same colors used on the front.
I also ended up scrubbing the floor where small particles of the paintsticks had dropped. Fortunately it came off easily since I did manage to see it before it had "cured". The paintsticks leave the scarf with a nice "hand" and a really fun to use. I will probably order some more scarves and get some friends over to play.
Speaking of friends--had a great lunch with Suellen and Shirley on Wednesday. We each brought our favorite quotes and shared them with each other. Not surprisingly we had all collected quotes since we were much younger--connections, connections. Linda decided to get the flu so will join us, germ free, next time.

2 comments:

Ruth S. said...

Ah, Nancy- my two pyrs do the same thing with their rawhide chewbones. It's too funny to watch Rex con JoJo into leaving her bone -- he barks at the door, she comes running, he snatches her bone. Then she snatches his, as if THAT were the coup!

Tell us more about the paintsticks! Would they work on yarn? How about on knitted fabric, to do an impressionistic painting?

nck said...

The paintsticks can be used on fabric, glass, tile, etc. I don't see why they couldn't be used on yarn. However I think they would only be a surface treatment since they don't fully penetrate to the back of a silk scarf. You might want something that could bond more fully with the fiber.
Let me know what you get if you try them.