A Dream and a Vest

Last night I dreamed that my blog had a ton of followers. Three days ago I also dreamed that I was a major league baseball player. Some things will just never come true.

Anyway, on with the post. I had been working on a crocheted sweater/jacket thing about a week ago, and when I was trying on the body before the sleeves were attached, I thought to myself, "This looks like a vest! How cute would a vest be?!" Mind you, I don't own any vests. I've never felt the urge to wear a vest. However, one cannot stop a girl once vest-possessed. So, I searched around online, found a free pattern, and got to work.

I used this pattern as my basis, but I wouldn't really recommend it unless you're feeling adventurous. It has quite a few errors and confusing instructions (it is free). I didn't follow the instructions exactly, either; I chose to make it smaller then the stated small size using myself as a form, which led to me having to redo the back, but it all turned out really well in the end. The whole thing took about 2 days.

Stairs fit for a dog

A few (okay, 7) years ago, my parents were totally against getting a dog. And then my sister brought this little dude home...

Jake as a teeny tiny puppy. Awww....

And the rest is history. They adopted Sadie from a rescue organization a few years ago to keep Jake occupied:

Saders.

Sadie and Jake sleep on my parents' bed (you see how far they have come...), and they're concerned about how high of a jump it is for Sades. She has a hard time getting up sometimes, and it's a long jump down. So, enter the dog stairs! I helped my dad make these a few weeks ago.

We started with a 2' square piece of plywood, which we cut into the stair sides, with 8" risers and 6" treads. Using other scrap pieces of plywood, we cut the actual stair treads a couple of feet wide, and nailed the pieces together.

We also added a couple of smaller pieces of wood for bracing on the bottom front and rear:

Once that was finished, all that was left was covering the whole thing with carpet using a staple gun...

and voila! Dog stairs!

These days...

Besides needleworking up a storm (posts to come), I am watching and loving tons of televised sports. If you are not watching the Texas Rangers these days, you should be. I have not been this happy about the Rangers since, well, the mid-1990s. Also, if you are not following the Little League World Series, get on that too. It only comes but once a year!