Toto From The Wizard Of Oz

Thanks to For The Love Of Dog Blog, I just read this very interesting post at Hollywoodland about Toto from The Wizard of Oz and her trainer, Carl Spitz.  Toto was originally called Terry and made a bunch of movies that I now want to watch so I can look for her. And, did you know she was paid more money than the Munchkins were?

Toto had been buried at Carl Spitz's dog training school but her grave was destroyed when the Ventura Freeway was built through the San Fernando Valley.  A memorial marker for the pup was recently unveiled at Hollywood Forever Cemetery and you can read all about that here.

By the way, this was my first visit to Hollywoodland and I think I need to spend some time there.  Lots of interesting stuff about old Hollywood (and new) on that blog.

New Moon On Saturday

Did you know there are two new moons in July?  Tonight is the second one so that means it is time for another TUSAL update. 

What is a TUSAL?  TUSAL stands for Totally Useless Stitch-A-Long and for this stitch-a-long, all you need to do is throw your leftover floss (aka thread ends) into a jar or container and share a picture of it every month on the date of the new moon. Or around the date of the new moon, if you're like me and never on time.

I planned to be on time today and even took pictures of my jar this morning.  And then I forgot all about posting one of the pictures until now.  At least it is still July 30th on the West Coast.

Thanks to Sharon at It's Daffycat for hosting the TUSAL 2011.

That teddy bear cross stitch is my latest project.  I finished the stitching a little while after I took this picture except for a few  X's around the eyes that I'll do after I find a similar shade of floss since I don't have the one recommended in the chart.  It's a freebie from a French blog and I'll post a link to it as soon as I track it down again.

Summer Cottage

I hope the title of this post doesn't make anyone think I was going to blog about my summer cottage or a summer cottage that I know of.  I wish I had one to write about!  It's just the name of my latest cross stitch finish.  It's another UFO I recently found in one of two tote bags sitting on my bedroom floor.  All the stitching had been completed last summer.  I just added the year and a backing fabric to make YET ANOTHER LITTLE PILLOW.  (Seriously, I have to do something different next time.)  I believe I used all the suggested floss colors and stitched it on 18 ct Fiddler's.


Sorry you can't really see the tree on the right side.  The fur surrounding the top half of the little pillow belongs to my dog, Pumpkin.  She enjoys modeling my projects.  Lucy, on the other hand, tends to chew on everything.  As a result, Lucy is banned from my photo shoots.

The chart is a freebie from Les grilles de Maryse.  There was one for each season and I was certain I had stitched the others but I can't find the Autumn one.  Here's the Winter one from 2007 and Spring from 2008.

The free charts:   Spring  Summer  Fall  and  Winter.

My plan is to finish at least a few more UFOs from that tote bag before I start anything new but after looking at the freebies on Maryse's blog, I'm reminded of another one I've always wanted to stitch.  I have a feeling I'll be starting that very soon.  Have a great weekend!

Animal Planet's Casting Couch

From Animal Planet's June 30, 2011 email newsletter:

Animal Planet is casting for a new show about the relationship between people and animals.

We are looking for stories about how an animal, like a pet, may have turned someone's life around or helped someone in an extraordinary fashion.

For more info, go here.

July TUSAL Report

Of course I missed posting a Totally Useless Stitch-a-long aka TUSALupdate once again.  This month, the new moon was on the first so I'm a few days late.  But did you know July has two new moons?  (Thank you, Sharon, for that bit of info.)  My goal is to post my next update on time on July 30th.  So hell can freeze over.

I just took four pictures of my ORTs jar and here's the best one.  This is the current state of my jar of thread ends.

Thanks to Sharon at It's Daffycat for hosting the TUSAL 2011!

Last night I finished a WIP (it's a felt pincushion that I totally forgot about), and have also been working on a cross stitch that will most likely grow up to be an Xmas ornament.  I recently told myself that no new projects will be started until I finish a few I've already started and have actually been sticking to that.  I'll wait until there's more daylight to take some pictures of them.