Weasley On Wednesday-The Finale

As you can guess from the title, our beloved Weasley has crossed the Rainbow Bridge.  It had been obvious on Sunday morning that he had taken a turn for the worse, and we decided it was time to let him go. We took turns holding him all day. He slipped away from us very early Monday morning, after spending all night sleeping in my arms. Very sad, but the last couple years haven't been easy on him. He handled all the adversity so valiantly,  hopefully he is restored to his youthful self on the other side.

I thought I would share some pictures with you of earlier, happier, times. Weasley came to us in the Summer of 2003 when he was a year old, from a farm called The Fuchsia Fleece.  It was Sarah, the former Pittsburgher, now the Southerner, who picked him out. She always said that if he had been a person, she would have married him.These  two pictures show him in the hotel room, the first night he was ours. He had been named Matthew, and we always joked that it should have been "Matt". He matted up faster than any of our other buns. All you had to do was look at him, and think the word, and he would be matted!

Look how bright and shiny his eyes were!

 We found him a friend in Molly. Weasley is on the left, and Molly on the right.

I had just decided that I didn't want to breed rabbits after all, and someone left the cage door open. Ooops! Our sweet Ginny was the result. For awhile they were all happy together. Eventually Molly decided she wanted to be elsewhere, so it became just Ginny and Weasley.

Weasley was a prodigious eater, as you may have noticed.

But his favorite thing was couch cuddling, especially after Ginny crossed the Bridge. He loved to be held, for as long as you would hold him. We've never had another rabbit like him.

With the Curly One

He liked to sleep, and would flop out so completely that we would have to check if he was breathing. He also liked to be inside things, like tuba coils.

And dust pans. How's this for a dust bunny?

He loved to be in the sun, no matter how hot it was. But you know that already. You've seen plenty of pictures of him sleeping in the sun. Here's one more.

He also liked to sleep inside vacuum cleaner coils, especially with Ginny along side.

 Actually, stretching out next to Ginny may have been his favorite thing of all.

Weasley is in back.

Ginny had a way of leading him into trouble. She would go someplace she shouldn't be, and he would follow. Here he is getting ready to jump up on the trunk.

She was amazingly curious, and he would go along for the ride. It cost him a toenail one day, when he followed her down the basement stairs. He fell, and in trying to hold on, he pulled out a toenail. It never grew back.

The hay bin in the kitchen was a frequent target, whether someone had left it open,

Ginny on the left, Weasley on the right

or even if the bin was closed. Here Ginny has already jumped down, and is acting innocent.

One of their favorite cuddle places was this old brown chair, which is next to our computer.

Weasley in front

Ginny liked to chew the chair., but Weasley had a licking habit. At first, I thought he had done something naughty, but after watching him, I realized that the large wet spots were from him licking the chair, for a very long time. He licked other things, too. Actually, he licked almost anything his face came in contact with.

The last couple years have been hard on the Old  Man, and I know he has missed Ginny. I imagine they are together now, both  healed, sleeping in the sun, eating tasty greens, and cuddling. Ginny is probably leading Weasley into trouble, and he is loving it.

Goodbye, my Sweet Bunny Man. We love you deeply, and will miss you until we are together again. For now, see clearly, and hop well.

Long Weekend Road Trips

Not to any place exotic, unfortunately. Friday and Monday were spent shuttling the Younger One home from, and then back to, the University of Maine, Farmington. This came about rather suddenly, after a planned visit by a friend fell through. It was good to see her, but I'm glad she was able to help with some of the driving!

It is a very pretty drive. And, I was amazed to see on Monday, how much the colors had changed since Friday. 

We listen to lots of music on these trips. Her iPod has better music than mine, so I take every opportunity to listen to hers.  And we sing along. One of us even has a nice voice. That same one was less than 4 years old when she told her mother to take singing lessons!

I took a lot of pictures as the Daughter was driving. They tend to be blurry, but its hard to resist trying, when the scenery is this good.

The cattle, and horses too, were everywhere, enjoying the unseasonalbly warm weather. The temperature was in the 80's. Maine isn't likely to see that again for a long time.

It was a little sad on the return trip. And the driving was a lot harder. Commuters don't coexist on the road too happily with people returning from their last long weekend of the year at their holiday getaways, who are towing all sorts of weird things behind fully loaded SUV's.

Well, I got home eventually. And today was made happier by the timely arrival of a treat from Natascha over at Natascha's Inspirations. I won one of her plaques in a recent give-away.

This little lady is even prettier in person, and as I suspected, the twinkel in her eye reminds me very much of  Ginny. To be specific, it's Ginny as she would look just before embarking on some escapade that she knew was going to get her into trouble. I love this. Thank you, Natascha.

You may have noticed that there hasn't been a lot of sewing (or anything else for that matter) on this blog of late. That should change starting next week, as my schedule interruptions should decrease (keeping fingers crossed here). To celebrate, I'm planning a give-away of my own. Of what, you ask? Well, that depends on what I happen to find this week when I explore a couple of totally new to me Quilt Shops. Stay tuned for more information, and Weasley will see you tomorrrow.

We Had A Bug

Hi, everyone. It's been quite awhile. Our computer came down with something. It was easier to find out what it had, than it was to undo the effects, but we seem to be OK now. If you've been expecting an e-mail, I'm sorry for the wait. I'll be working on catching up with all that, and with blogland, over the weekend.

In the meantime, I've been sewing. I made some scraps into notebook covers. Why are there always so many more scraps than actual quilts? It's like they breed in the scrap box!

I finally put a binding on this scrap (!) quilt, that has been sitting around for over a year waiting to be finished. I actually like sewing on bindings, so I don't know why it waited so long. Probably it was always just the least urgent item on the list. It's name, which hopefully doesn't sound too pretentious, is "Fire In Winter".

On Father's Day, we took the youngest up to Farmington, Maine, for a summer class at the University of Maine. This is where she will be going to school in the fall. We embarrassed her in the parking lot. 

And then, we took a walk around town, the whole two blocks or so of it.

Some day when it's open, I'm going to have to check out this place.

We left town after narrowly avoiding a coffee bath. The clerk at the shop tried to slide a large iced coffee to me, only to have it tip instead. I'm not sure how, but I managed to jump back in time to avoid the spill. Didn't know I could still move that fast! 

Back at home, Weasley's been hanging out on the couch with me, helping me bind another quilt. In case you're wondering, it was the Husband's choice to sit on the floor. We didn't force him to.

Apparently he (Weasley) felt like he was not getting enough attention. In my defense, it's hard to sew a binding, keep track of what Michael, Sam and Fiona are up to, and still keep the Rabbit properly entertained.

What I was finishing was this (are you tired of seeing it yet?). Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a great picture last night. It will be hanging in our guild quilt show this weekend, so hopefully i can get some good pictures while its there. I put way more quilting into it than I originally intended, so that part of the construction seemed to last forever.

And my final step had me really intimidated. I dry-brushed gold paint over the brown border and binding, to imitate the gilding on many Russian Icons. On many of these icons, the gold is mostly, or even completely, missing. The dry-brushing actually worked well, much to my relief! 

Now I'm looking forward to a crazy weekend of helping at the quilt show, and at a downtown event, getting the kid home, her laundry done, and getting her sent off again for another adventure. Oh, and most importantly there has to be some rabbit pampering. But that part really goes without saying, doesn't it?

Beach Bunny

 For the Bloggers Quilt Festival hosted by Amy's Creative Side, I wanted to show a small quilt that I recently created. This quilt started out as a way to take part in the April Color Palette Challenge over at Three Creative Studios.

I wanted to continue working with the tiled look that I used on this quilt. And, perhaps because I had recently been working on finishing up my Russian Icon Rabbit quilt (which has unfortunately become a UFO), this quilt ended up turning into another tribute to Ginny. If you haven't been reading this blog right along, Ginny was my sweet Satin Angora doe, who recently crossed the Rainbow Bridge. You can see her picture in my sidebar.

I'm sure she could have given Venus on her half shell some tough competition. Well, maybe not after a haircut, but when she had her full coat.....

The quilt is done with raw-edge fused applique, that was stitched down before adding some machine embroidery, and some thread sketching. Ginny and the lettuce leaf are quilted, but the only other quilting is in the "grout lines" of the tiles. The quilt is made from a mix of hand-dyed and commercial fabrics.

I hope you enjoy seeing my quilt as much as I enjoyed making it. It's one of my favorites.

Ginny


On Monday morning, our beautiful Ginny crossed the bridge. While it had seemed on Saturday like she might be rallying, on Sunday afternoon her condition deteriorated rapidly. In true Ginny fashion, one of her last bursts of action, after a feeding session, was to circle around me, flicking her feet all the way. She spent the afternoon sleeping in the sun, with Weasley by her side. Later, she moved to the kitchen litterbox, and Weasley stayed there at her side through the night. On Monday morning, as I was leaving to take my daughter to school, I told her it was OK to leave, and I told Weasley that it was time to let her go. When I came back a little later, she was gone. Weasley continued to sit with her for another hour or so.

I would like to share with you some pictures that were taken of my girl before I started blogging. Ginny was born in the basement of this house. From the very beginning, she had an amazing amount of curiosity, opinionated self-confidence, and spunk. When her siblings went off to other homes, I couldn't let her go.




Ginny and her siblings, a few days old. The red are sisters, the white are brothers.

 Ginny liked to climb everything, jump off anything, and would only stay put briefly for petting. She would race around the house at top speed, and bounce off the walls. She was constantly underfoot, because she always had to know what was going on.

Here they are, a little older.

She always wanted to be where she wasn't supposed to be. When she was younger, she used to race to the top of the stairs, just in case we left the upstairs gate open. She loved to be able to get into my oldest daughter's room, especially after my daughter went off to college.

Ginny and her sisters, about 7 weeks old. To be honest, I'm not sure which one is her.

When the bathroom door was open, she would hang out near the entrance, trying to look nonchalant. When she thought we weren't looking, she would race into the bathroom, and  try to dig her way behind the washing machine.

Ginny (in the back of the picture), with her parents Molly and Weasley.

When she was given a treat, Ginny would run off with it to a "safe" place. Sometimes she would forget to stop running, and would lose the treat somewhere along the way. If that happened, she would go and take Weasley's treat away from him.

Ginny getting ready to perform the Bun Concerto Number 4.

When let out of the kitchen, Ginny and Weasley had a certain path they would travel, before settling down somewhere. Ginny would throw things that were in her path Their path took them under the dining room table, where my husband used to leave his shoes. More than one pair of shoelaces were bitten in half before he learned his lesson.

Weasley on left, Ginny on right, Valentine's Day.

Ginny hated to travel in the car, and would throw major tantrums. She would dig her towel from one side of the carrier and back again. And she would thump. A lot.

Every hearth needs a bun.

Like most bunnies, Ginny loved to sleep in the sun. But she also loved to cuddle up and go to sleep in the curls of the vacuum cleaner hose. I have no idea why.


A little privacy, please, Mom!

 Every now and then, Ginny would develop a digging habit. It would generally only last for two or three weeks, until she found something else to fascinate her. She could empty a litterbox very quickly. When I got the supposed "dig-proof" litterboxes, she soon learned to use the narrow opening as a chute to throw the litter out through. 



Someone left the hay bin in the kitchen open. Don't know for sure, but most likely Ginny led Weasley up here.

This blog got it's name from Ginny's habit of textile destruction. I will never forget the sight of her covered in batting bits, as she looked up at me from the quilt she was chewing up. Her towels looked like swiss cheese.

Nothing more beautiful.

The only piece of fabric she ever refused to chew was the one I gave her, thinking that I could make some interesting textile project from the result of her chewing. That fabric is pristine to this day!

Leading her father into trouble. Again. 


We almost lost Ginny a couple of times over the years. The first time was when she decided to show how much she liked getting her hair cut by biting through the cord of the electric clippers. I have no idea how she survived that. We would have lost her last June, if our new vet had not been really good with bunny teeth. Now she's gone, and our house is very quiet. Ginny's presence was much bigger than her physical size.



Dreaming up more bunny projects.

 Ginny was a joy to know, and we feel truly blessed to have had her in our lives. She will be missed.

As for Weasley, he didn't eat so well the first day, but is doing better now. We are giving him extra love, and lots of time to sleep in the sun. And he seems to enjoy "watching" NCIS on the couch while getting his fur stroked. Please give your furry ones, bun or otherwise, a little extra love from us today.