A face made for speed!

My entry for the I Heart Faces “Furry Faces” challenge is the beautiful face of Jorga, a rescued racing Greyhound. This is truly a face made for speed!

This past Friday, Dogpatch Pix participated in an event put on by Cincy Chic, an e-zine focused on women’s lifestyle and fashion in the Cincinnati area. In part to help raise funds for the Recycled Doggies organization, Cincy Chic organized this fun get-together for couture-loving owners and their dogs called the Cincy Chic Pet Fashion Show. The night consisted of sponsors such as K9 Country Club (and their spokesdog, Iris), Lucky Paws and Naked Dingo networking from their vendor’s tables, charity raffles and silent auctions for the benefit of Recycled Doggies, a fashion show featuring models accompanied by dogs of all kinds, and, of course, photography.

On top of having a vendor’s table, Dogpatch Pix was asked to take portraits of the lovely pups who were selected to be in the fashion show, and my mom, Susan (founder and photographer here at Dogpatch Pix), gave their owners the opportunity to be in the photos as well. We saw everything from Bulldogs to Bichons, and costumes ranging from banana suits to bowties. Everyone was dressed to the nines! I clearly remember the first thing I saw when I walked in the door that evening was a Black Lab draped in a huge, bright pink flower. Good times and lots of laughs were definitely had.

Friday also saw the debut of the Dogpatch Pix Birthday Club! Many attendees were eager to sign up for our totally-free club which includes (annually) an birthday card from the Dogpatch Pix “Top Dog” Darwin, a small gift appropriate for your type of pet (dog, cat, bird, etc), and a 20% discount on a studio session with us at the Pendleton Art Center during the month of your pet’s birthday! Our website does not yet feature a Birthday Club signup form, but if you would like to sign up, simply send us an email at dogpatchpix@gmail.com.

Below, you can check out some of the great shots we got of the fashion show itself. Everyone looked amazing!

With that said, I’ll move on to telling you about how I donned my knitted hat yesterday and drove to Yellow Springs with Mom on a journey to the local Wool Gathering. The Gathering, associated with the Midwest Festival of Fibers, is an annual event that takes place at Young’s Jersey Dairy and includes many local vendors of natural fibers and hand-made crafts. Also in attendance were various guilds and groups from the area associated with everything from knitting and weaving to participation in the SCA.

This yarn is so soft.

You may be wondering what Dogpatch Pix was doing at such an event. The answer is “shopping for supplies!” My mom has been crocheting for a while now, and has begun to make beautiful one-of-a-kind clothing for dogs! She wanted to make the products for your pet even more special, and decided we should concentrate on using local fibers only. The Wool Gathering was the perfect place to start our search. It was an absolutely beautiful day, every vendor was kind and helpful, and best of all, we got to meet some of the vendors’ animals (llamas, rabbits, and even a dog!).

We did have a few favorite vendors. Our favorite yarn came from Lisa Rodenfels’ Bluefaced Leicester sheep at Somerhill Farm. Irresistibly soft and with a lovely natural feeling, the Bluefaced Leicester wool was the most unique we encountered. Mom was crazy about it! Lisa, who is also the president of the Bluefaced Leicester Union of North America, was so sweet and answered all our questions! Also on our “loved” list was the Wooly Knob Fiber Mill, run by Matt Mabis and Jamie Stark. Aside from teaching us a lot about the process of acquiring and spinning wool, they sold us some beautiful roving made with wool from local sheep, which they had dyed in some wild colors! Last but definitely not least, we were introduced to the world of llama and alpaca wool by Lee Ann King of the Midwest Fiber Company and Cindy Ruckman of McFarland’s Llama Farm. These ladies not only had all sorts of locally-farmed wool in beautiful colors, but also sold the most beautiful crafts we saw at the Gathering all day! Mom got some nice alpaca-wool yarn from Lee Ann to try out in her dog sweaters. I bet your dogs will love it.

After a very long day of wandering through a wooly world, Mom and I got ourselves some of Young’s famous ice cream before tiredly trundling back to the car and heading home, satisfied. We had a big bag of yarn and roving, a camera full of great photos, stomachs full of delicious food, and brains full of stories to tell all of you! Now, when you buy a piece of hand-made dog clothing from Dogpatch Design, you’ll know exactly where our hunt for that beautiful yarn began.

As a side note, you might be curious about why the title of this post includes the term “fleece fair” when the actual event was called “A Wool Gathering” or “fiber festival.” The truth is that events like this have been happening for centuries and go by many names, including those previously mentioned as well as “fiber fair” and “sheep and wool festival.” It just so happens that Mom and I are currently reading the book World Without End by Ken Follett, which takes place in the 1300s and focuses on a town that is largely dependent on its fleece fair for economic stability.  We were very excited and amused to be going to an actual fleece fair after reading so much about them. Interested in some great historical fiction? Read about World Without End and its prequel, The Pillars of the Earth, at Ken Follett’s website.

Check out all the photos from our day in the slides below.

Check out the other pet photos at I Heart Faces!