When I first contacted The California Chi about some custom work, it was mainly to get some clothes done in Pirates and Steelers fabric (to try and win John over to the dark side of dressing Chihuahuas). Unfortunately when we went to buy more fabric, we could not find either version of the Pirates fleece anywhere 
Fortunately, I was able to scrounge up enough scraps that I had left over to send and get 1 shirt.
Well All That Flutters is on a roll, it seems (and I am behind on getting posts up). On the 27th, I got another TBA (Today’s Best Award) for a design that was actually done by my friend, Anna. She painted it based on her Pionus Parrot, Indigo a/k/a Diggie.
I just noticed that this also has a little notice on it that it was in the top 10 visited buttons for the 27th 
Today in the Tequila Wardrobe series, we are going to feature 2 great t-shirts from The California Chi. These are both from fabric that April had in stock. The purple camo one is a knit fabric and I think Teq looks absolutely great in purple The pawprint fabric is a thermal or waffle knit and they are great year round. Teq loves them even in the summer, particularly because I keep the house a bit chilly for her tastes.
I have been busy lately trying to my new stores up and running at Zazzle. I decided to get a new domain where I will be able to blog about business stuff, but until that is up and running, I will continue to put a few select posts up here. I have never posted much about my business on my personal site, but I have also never actively considered it a business really. I did have one year that I worked on it pretty seriously, but even during that year I refused to call it anything other than a hobby. I’ve decided that I’m going to try and stop marginalizing it and call it what it is and give in and even try to learn some of the parts that I dread (like self-promotion).
So one of the new stores, is called All That Flutters and it centers around “things with wings.” John has taken pity on me and is trying to help me get my 3k+ designs up and running in the new stores and learned how to add them in this store.
His work paid off and on June 23, 2011 one of my products earned a “TBA” or Today’s Best Award
Each day they pick 40 or so designs to highlight out of all the submissions for that day. The competition is pretty stiff, so I am very honored to have gotten a TBA.
I saw a cute robe and wanted to get one for Teq for after her bath, but of course they were all way too huge for her. So I got some cute material and was just going to have April, at The California Chi, make me a shirt for her out of it. During our emails, I mentioned that I had wanted a robe for Teq, but just asked her for a shirt. She surprised me with an actual robe, which I LOVE!
Teq also loves it and wears it long after she is dry. I think she looks absolutely darling in it.
Continuing picture from Tequila’s new wardrobe by April from The California Chi or The California Chi on Facebook. April was great to work with and her prices are very reasonable. I highly recommend her. She custom made Teq’s clothes based on her measurements, which is so wonderful because until just recently Teq could not wear any of the store bought clothes…they were all way too huge for her. Now she can wear the xxs stuff, but I no longer need it with these great custom made clothes
Today we are showing off Steelers dresses, which I think turned out absolutely darling.
Teq does not yet get full access to the entire house for safety reasons (she is pretty small) and she also doesn’t get full access to the backyard like the other dogs yet. So when she gets to go out in the full back yard we say she is thinking “wow this is a really big room” (yes we are anthropomorphizing, it’s part of the fun of owning a pet) 
She burns a lot (A LOT) of energy in “the big room” so I am starting to let her go out there more often now that she is a bit older and has shown she has no desire to try and get under the deck or any of the other teeny, tiny places that small dogs shouldn’t be going, but Papillons all seemed to think were the best places EVAH when they were puppies (I finally learned by the time we got the chihuahua!).
Here are some pictures of the Chihuahua and her Papillon siblings in “the big room” over the weekend (some comments follow):
Pictures of Bun without headgear..it’s a festivus miracle! Poor Bun, hopefully the allergy shots will start working and he can be permanently headgear free. I’ve managed to keep some fringe on him despite the headgear (not an easy feat), so you can imagine how much fringe he’d have if he wasn’t wearing that thing 24/7 for the last couple years. He’s a good boy. You can see Teq taking advantage of his temporary headgearlessness to jump on his head. He prefers to play with her WITH the headgear on (I don’t blame him, her baby teeth are sharp).
Kendall is getting so red, which I do not understand, because I don’t see her incessantly licking , but from the looks of her legs you would think that is ALL she does. She is going to be 9 and is a pet, so it’s not really a battle I am planning to fight, but it’s slightly perplexing.
A picture of camera shy Obie with his *great* front *cough* That was one of the few times when he has actually posed for a shot. Usually he runs when he sees the camera. Maybe the prozac is working.
When Teq was very little, her Aunt Lisa sent her a great thermal shirt made by a woman named April from The California Chi. A while after that, I emailed April about ordering some shirts and then I asked if I could send her some fabric and have her make me some shirts from that fabric. My original intent was to get a couple Pirates and Steelers things that John would like to see Teq in.
Because I am me, that turned into something much bigger than a couple Pirates and Steelers shirts 
When we were done, it looked something like this:
I haven’t even gotten all the stuff out of the box yet and gotten pictures of Teq in everything, but over the next few days, I will be sharing pictures of Tequila in her fabulous new wardrobe.
She particularly loves the sleeveless shirts. I have to fight with her to take them off once I put one on her. She wore one for 3 days in a row once before I finally forced her to let me remove it Usually she will strip herself when she gets too warm or tired of wearing a shirt, but she loves her some sleeveless t-shirts!
Teq and I braved the outside world and went to one of John’s softball games. Actually 2 games, as it was a double header. It was fun, but the temperature was approximately the same as the surface of the sun! We were both quite ready to come back to the air conditioning by the time it was over
Teq had a great time, though. She thought everyone was there JUST. TO. SEE. HER! Anytime someone walked up to the xpen, she would throw herself down for a belly rub. I suggested that maybe everyone didn’t want to rub her belly, but she assured me that I was being silly and of course everyone wanted to rub her belly..duh!
I was ambitious prior to going and wanted her to have “team spirit” so set out to make her a harness in the team colors. I drug John to the fabric store and set him loose to find the proper green, which was a good thing because I would have gotten the wrong shade. He, on the other hand, got the perfect shade. Her harness matched the towel he has perfectly
I also got a O and U to sew on and I wanted a kitty paw (the logo they used when John went there), but had no luck finding one anywhere. Anna suggested a pin and as luck would have it, I collect hat pins and happened to have an OU “kitty paw” one, so stuck that on the harness to cover the kitty paw aspect.
Some pics from the games:
It was hot!
See, perfect match on the fabric
Did I mention it was a double header?
Run faster dad!
Couple pics of John since we were at his game
