Maira Kalman’s children’s book What Pete Ate From A-Z begins with this description of Pete the dog: “A good dog, a very good dog, but sometimes he is not so good.” This perfectly describes my dog Cora. She is a magnificent dog: smart, beautiful, strong, loyal, and gentle. But on the rarest of occasions she’ll do something . . . odd.
Since I’ve lived in this house we’ve had a door knob chime on the double doors leading into the entryway. It belonged to my in-laws when they lived in the house, an homage to their black lab mix Bill. I recently realized that the dog looked different somehow:
I’m not particularly attached to the chime, but I am used to it as a signal of the comings and goings in the house. I wanted to save it mostly because I think it is probably part of my daughter’s auditory landscape of home. So I set about transforming it from a decapitated black lab into a phoenix rising from the ashes. Just kidding, what I really did was make it a dickey.
To start, I cut away most of the remaining leather to leave a rectangle where the bells are affixed.
Next, I took a dark grey sheet of craft felt that I had on hand, and cut it into a flag shape. The felt is stretchy, and I cut two slits and eased them over the bells.
Next, I started embroidering the dickey. I didn’t draw a pattern, and I didn’t worry about making my stitches very neat. My reasoning was (1) Cora still lives here; (2) I’m not a great embroiderer, and; (3) what I envisioned making was basically a cat toy.
You know we’re tassel fans here at RHW, and I couldn’t let the chance go by. I followed Katie’s tassel tutorial, using bunka cord (I also used some in the embroidery).
I made one modification: instead of wrapping cord around the top of the tassel, I used a bead cap and threaded down into it.
Another Cora oddity is the way she lies upside down mashed against the door:
And it gets stranger still, though I can’t blame this one on Cora:
That’s all from Red House West Northern Headquarters for today. Katie is back on Wednesday with a laundry room/entryway update and next week I’ll be posting about a little interior update of my own. Have a great week everyone!