Category: Greyhound Coats

What to do when the kitchen is off limits!

Yes! It’s that time again! For at least a week each December the kitchen is tied up with Bert’s marathon cookie baking! He makes about 170 pounds of dough and bakes about 140 dozen chocolate chip cookies. Of course, the refrigerator in the kitchen, the extra refrigerator in the basement and various tubs in the garage are packed with dozens of eggs, butter, flour, sugar and chocolate chips for a week before the mixing and baking begins.

Bert has been doing this for the last 60+ years so this is just a normal December for me. You can see the recipe and more photos in the two other posts I wrote about his yearly project:

https://marykisner.com/berts-yearly-cookie-marathon/ and

https://marykisner.com/kitchen-tied-up-with-cookies-and-bread/

Before I got out of the way this time, I planned ahead and made a batch of chicken salad and egg salad and got a loaf of bread out of the freezer so we could grab food for lunches around all the baking activities! There is no counter or table space available once he gets started!

While the kitchen is off limits for any baking I want to do, I took a few pictures of my ongoing projects in other spaces in the house.

In the dining room I’m keeping my microgreens growing. This batch of sunflowers is about ready to cut. They are not very thick because many of the seeds did not sprout. The seed was saved from last year and it is probably time to order some new seed. The peas (on the right) need a few more days to fill out.

In my sewing room, I have 4 greyhound coats to finish before Christmas. I have a TV to entertain me with the latest Christmas Hallmark movies!

In my sewing room, I also have my beads stored ready to finish a few bracelets. Can you see the second shelf down with flat boxes? All my beads fit in those 6 flat boxes! Of course, when I want to work with them, I lay them out on the bed and choose the beads I need. Work on the bracelets has to happen at my desk in the office.

In the office, I can write my posts OR I can make bracelets! Such a multipurpose desk with a good light!

Here’s the latest bracelet I finished today!

So, you can see I have many choices of things to do when I can’t get into the kitchen! I can always do laundry around my projects…but you’ll seldom see me choosing to clean or dust or vacuum! Just too many fun projects to distract me! Haha! Enjoy!

More About Making Greyhound Coats

As many of you know, I have an ongoing volunteer activity of making fleece coats for re-homed greyhounds. When there are gaps in my writing of a few days, it’s often because I’m busy sewing and I’m really not motivated to try to write a new and exciting post about the process.

For this pose, I’d just like to share how I go about choosing fabrics and how I sew four coats at a time, like an assembly line.

You can read more about my work with the greyhounds over the last two years at the following posts:

https://marykisner.com/greyhounds-in-my-heart/

https://marykisner.com/cozy-coats-for-greyhounds/

https://marykisner.com/ongoing-work-with-greyhound-coats/

https://marykisner.com/time-to-get-back-to-making-greyhound-coats/

First of all, I am making coats for an unknown dog. I make two sizes…large or small. The main difference is the size of the neck area. The dogs arrive at Nittany Greyhounds (https://nittanygreys.org/) in Port Matilda, outside State College. They come from several locations. Some come from one of the few remaining tracks in the USA. Others come from Ireland or Australia. Their challenging travels will be described in another post.

While, in general, the male dogs are “large” and the female dogs are “small”, that’s not always the case so I try to keep my choices of colors neutral. I like using plaids or snowflakes. Any color I choose, I will be making 2 large and 2 small coats. In this latest batch the request was for more small/female coats, so with the bright pink fabric below I cut all four coats the small size.

When I step into JoAnn’s I’m faced with a wide variety of choices:

My most recent trip I ended up with 5 colors, with solid colors for the lining. I agreed to make all the pink ones small since Nittany had a number of females that needed coats. The rest of the colors would make 2 large and 2 small coats by folding the fabric off center to accommodate the wider width of the large coats.

Here were my color choices:

Cutting Out the Coats

I cut four coats of the same color at the same time. After I cut out the linings, I stack the pieces up so I don’t accidently sew a small snood (the neck piece) onto a large coat!

I first sew all the straps, attach my email tag and sew the Velcro (hook) piece to the end.

Then I sew the body of the coat, attach the snood and sew on the strap and Velcro loop piece. I’m always amazed how different colors look in different light! Below is the same coat!

I took this coat out to Nittany Greyhounds to try it on a small dog. Here’s an example of a small male whose owner might prefer the coat NOT be pink! But he served my purpose to show the coat on a dog!

Over the years, I have modified the pattern to accommodate how the greyhounds function in the coats. The coat fits snug around the chest area and running doesn’t seem to dislodge the coat. The snood, the strap and darts at the back end work together to keep the coat straight. Often, in winter, the dogs wear their coats indoors so the coats needed to stretch as they curled up. Originally, I tried using non-stretch sweatshirt fabric and this was the result… looks really uncomfortable.

So, back to stretchy fleece…curling up looks really cozy now!

I realize owners can find interesting coats online that could serve as “costumes” but since there are many cute choices online, I’ll spend my time making functional, warm coats. You won’t see a coat like this from my sewing machine!

Here are two hounds ready to go out for a walk!

Next time you wonder why I haven’t posted for a few days, consider how soon a greyhound will be cozy!

Dog Coats and Deer Visits

The sun may be shining today, but we woke up to 22 degrees! Ahh…fall weather in Pennsylvania! I’m spending this week making dog coats and usually that keeps my focus inside the house. Lately, however, we’ve had an unusual daytime visitor to our bird feeders that keeps distracting me!

Almost every day…and now several times a day, this small deer has been visiting. We’ve been watching it for more than a month…at first it came only at dusk and was always alone. The larger deer came later in the evening. We wondered if it was abandoned from its herd.

Bert had put a smaller feeder on a post out for some some of the larger birds, and apparently it was just the right height for our deer friend to just swipe its tongue across the seed.

I’m imagining the challenge of trying to get a coat on a deer!

So today, while I’m trying to focus on cutting out and sewing greyhound coats, I’m distracted by an adorable deer outside my window. Frankly, this deer is about the same size as the greyhounds…just with longer legs!

Here are a few of the coats I’ve made recently and my current project:

The collar (or snood) folds up to cover the ears if it’s really cold out.
Green plaid seems to be a favorite with adopters of the Irish Greyhounds.
This tie dye coat will ensure a dog doesn’t get lost in the snow!
As we get closer to Christmas, I’ll start incorporating red fleece into some coats. The lining of this black and white fleece coat will be red.

My thoughts on this beautiful crisp day will focus on sewing cozy coats for our greyhound friends and wondering how our tiny deer will do over the winter. I hope you’re enjoying the day too!

Please comment or email me directly at marykisner@comcast.net.

Time to Get Back to Making Greyhound Coats

I’ve spent most of the summer with my focus on the garden and a few skin care experiments. In the Spring, when I last thought about making fleece coats for the greyhounds, we had not yet turned on the air conditioners. I got discouraged because working with fleece when it’s hot is not fun. Luckily, the dogs were not facing cold weather so I didn’t feel any pressure to produce. Now that my canning is done and the rest of the garden is just needing maintenance, requests have come in that Nittany Greyhounds needs coats! And now, I’m ready to get back in the groove!

Here’s a picture of a dog in a coat I made a while ago:

It makes me happy to know that I can make something that will make their lives easier (and warmer!)

First, I had to dig through my fleece to see what colors I wanted to work with next. I ended up with two pieces of fleece, purple and a light-colored plaid. Both can be lined with white fleece.

The purple fleece I had just enough to make two coats…one large and one small. The plaid fleece had been used last year to make one coat…so I had enough to make three more, one small and two large.

Next came the challenge of prepping my work space. When I’m not actively sewing, my machine table seems to collect “stuff” like ironing that needed to be done, supplies that didn’t quite make it back into storage, etc. Sort of like having a treadmill handy that you don’t use all the time…pretty soon it’s extra closet space!

I found my sewing machine!

Next, I had to make sure it was ready to go, so I found the tools and took it apart to clean out any fuzz I had left behind.

Looks pretty good now!

Now to think about what I needed ready to start sewing. I checked that I had new needles, my name labels, Velcro and string tags. I use the tags to indicate a small or large coat. It’s hard to tell which has the large neck unless you compare one with a small. It’s just easier to label the coats.

For double layers of fleece I like to use a #16 Jeans needle.
My labels show folks how to contact me if they need a repair or want another coat. I try to offer them only through Nittany Greyhounds.
I buy Velcro wholesale on big rolls…saves money and I can get it 2″ wide.
I pin a tag on each coat.

I set aside the first day of making coats to just get them cut out.

I will make all of the coats the same color at the same time…assembly line. That way I don’t have to change the thread color in the middle of a batch.

I sew all the straps first.
Then all the neck pieces.

And then, one at a time, I’ll make the body of a coat and put it all together.

Today I managed to finish the first coat. Tomorrow I should be able to finish two more. It’s so easy to get distracted with other projects, so I’m glad my canning is out of the way. I just have to keep thinking about keeping my greyhound friends cozy this winter! Enjoy!

If you’d like to know more about how we developed the pattern for the coats, see https://marykisner.com/cozy-coats-for-greyhounds/.

Please comment or email me directly at marykisner@comcast.net.