. . . and Dog

I realised recently that it’s been a while since I wrote about Ellie even though she’s an important part of this blog, not only because of its name, but also because she arrived to live with us at about the same time I started it.

Ellie at 10 weeks old, shortly after she came to live with us

She looked like an angel, but actually she was a devil, the most difficult of the three dogs we’ve welcomed into the family. She’s a mixture of border collie and springer spaniel, both super-intelligent, hyper-active and crazy breeds. We didn’t choose her that way but we were looking for a dog as it had been about six months since our last dog (Penny) had died and when a friend said that the sister of a colleague had an accidental litter looking for homes we decided to go and have a look.

We’d been to the rescue centre but they no longer allowed you to meet the dogs in person because they felt it was disturbing to the dogs. Instead you had to look through a folder with pictures and descriptions which meant that you chose your dog with your head not your heart and that didn’t work for us. With Penny for instance, Frog and I went to the rescue centre looking for a Staffordshire bull terrier cross but saw a lurcher with her feet on the fence looking at us and fell in love, both convinced she was asking us to take her home.

Penny, shortly before she died of a brain tumour, aged only 9. She melted our hearts from the moment we saw her.

Neither of us is however sentimental about puppies. We know how appallingly difficult they can be. (‘Worse than a child,’ says our neighbour, who’s had both.) So we didn’t ooh and ah over the outrageously pretty litter. Instead, we bonded with Ellie’s mother, a large placid spaniel who came over to inspect us and pronounced us fit to take over the care of one of her offspring (or so both Frog and I felt).

After a few months of hell with puppy Ellie, we sought professional one-to-one help. ‘She’s a control freak,’ said Leanne the trainer. ‘She’s a PhD dog, not a GCSE one.’ And I could tell she didn’t think we were up to it. Nevertheless we muddled through, refusing to admit defeat, and after about two years Ellie became just about bearable.

Ellie at one year old, still trying for upper hand at every moment of every day

Now she’s nearly ten which in dog years makes her roughly the same age as me. This is a great relief as, much as I love walking, a good two hours every day for the past nine years has played hell with one of my knees and in the last year or so I’ve been able to cut that walking down and my knee has started to recover. Soon she’ll be older than me though and I’ll be the one dragging her further than she wants to go.

She’s still a control freak however – not with us but with strangers. Unlike Frog and me, she’s very gregarious, and greets everyone she meets. She doesn’t just greet them however; she tries to make them her slave. She lets them pet her, rolling on her back to let them rub her stomach, pretending she’s submissive, but when they stop she grabs their hand in her mouth – which for obvious reasons can be a bit of a problem. She always spots the people who will fall for her wiles (usually non-dog owners). ‘Oh what a pretty dog,’ they say, catching her eye. We call them her victims. We’re contemplating buying her a harness with the words, ‘Please ignore. In training.’

Ellie in the courtyard of the Rainbow's End cafe in Glastonbury on Thursday, looking relaxed.

Oh dear, she's spotted a victim (who succumbed to Ellie's charms, as they all do) 

Another of her quirks – or should I say vices – is reverting to wolf. I have written about this and how terrifying it was. Now I can deal with it, but it still makes me jump to be ambushed by a snarling snapping creature with wild eyes. Because it happens so rarely now I forget and don’t heed the warning signs – wide open spaces, wind and Ellie getting more and more excited.

On the Somerset Levels on Thursday and Ellie a speck in the distance, wildly excited by the combination of wide open space and wind. Luckily floods forced us to turn back before she went 'wolf'.

I love her dearly of course in spite of everything, and she’s a wonderful – obedient – companion on our long wild walks. I wouldn’t be able to do them without her. She makes me feel safe, and when I sit down in some forgotten patch of woodland or on top of a hill, to meditate/affirm/visualise or just be, as I try to do every day, she sits next to me, leans into me and keeps me warm.

In a forgotten patch of woodland: Ellie turning meditative in her old(er) age, like her human companion

Sewing Bee*

I’m fighting blackness at the moment, for lots of reasons: finishing (the current draft of) The Novel and waiting for professional report on it before I can go any further; winter and this bloody rain which seems to have been going on forever; the dreaded coronavirus and the threat it brings of not being able to go out or travel; as well as the usual – the state of the environment and the state of me. And one of the ways I’m distracting myself is sewing.

I’ve always sewn, even when I was a child. I don’t remember playing with dolls but I do remember making them clothes and lining them up proudly in their new outfits. I made everything in an ancient book I found on the shelves at home called One Hundred Things a Girl can Make and every 'Blue Peter' project. Then, when I was a teenager and already way above average height as well as anorexic, I started making my own clothes and altering those few I found in the shops that vaguely fitted. And I’ve done the same ever since, in part now in reaction to Frog who’s always in the shed or garage or his music room busy on some practical project or other.

Last time Frog’s niece K came to stay she gave me a pair of her jeans. I thought she was chucking them out so I took them to pieces, intending to turn them into a bag. I’d told K about my fondness for customising clothes and keeping old clothes so as to use them to alter new ones so I wanted to show her that I was putting her old jeans to good use. Before I did so however, I emailed her to check that she was OK with my plans.

    ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I thought you could turn them into shorts for me or trim them with leather or lace.’

    Bother, I thought. Why didn’t she say that before? And what am I? Some sort of servant? Her mother?  I did feel a bit guilty though. She’d admired a green dress I was wearing in the summer and asked if I could make her one to the same pattern, but when she tried it on the shape didn’t suit her, and anyway I was busy writing so didn’t want to embark on such a long project, especially for someone else, and how I was I going to fit it to her shape when she wasn’t there? So I demurred.

The (much-faded) green dress

Perhaps, I thought now, I could turn The Jeans into a dress for her.

I have a beloved 2004 pattern that I’ve used for summer dresses many many times (including for the green dress), in many different fabrics and lengths.

I’ve made a version for a neighbour and most years I make a new version for myself.

Last year's version - in purple batik

A blue linen version I made in January this year

I’ll adapt the pattern for her, I thought. It’ll be a challenge.
    I told her of my plan and asked her for her measurements.

    ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘Can we review this later? I've not been training for 2 weeks due to an injury and I didn't behave on my diet and relaxed . . . ’

    I remember the feeling well – buying/making clothes that would fit ‘when I lost weight’, wearing the same thing over and over again because it was the only thing that did fit, not having any clothes at all. (My anorexia having metamorphosed into compulsive eating.)

    Too bad, I thought. I need to do some sewing now. I’ll guess the sizing. That'll make the project even more of a challenge.

And here is the result so far. I’m pretty proud of it.

Especially the red topstitching, courtesy of my new sewing machine which replaced the 45-year-old one I had to abandon with much sorrow last year.

I plan to put the jeans’ back pockets over the bust and use the jeans’ waistband (with its loops) as a belt to cinch the loose waist of the dress (which is what didn’t suit K). All with more of the red topstitching.

And to use the skirt material to face (line) the top.

And I’ll probably put more topstitching around the neck and armholes and down the front button-panel.

I haven’t yet decided on the colour of the buttons – probably black, as red (or purple) might be a step too far.

Whether K will like it and whether it will fit her, I’ve no idea. I hope so.

* 'Bee/B' is my nickname but the title of this post is also a homage to that excellent TV programme 'The Great British Sewing Bee'. I hope they do another series.

   I wrote another post on this subject seven years ago (help!). Click here to read it. You'll also find posts by clicking on 'sewing' in the category list to the right.