*The History of FleeceCircus*

All that boring stuff you probably could care less about, but I'm gonna tell ya' anyway.

Assuming anyone bothers to read pages like this, here's a little background about how I got roped into this little 'venture'.

First things first. I'm a little bit OCD, and I have to be doing something. I'm physically handicapped, so that something has to be an 'activity' that I can do without a lot of huffing and puffing. I'm an amateur artist, and the same kind of writer, but I have to be 'in the mood' to partake in those hobbies.....and in the early winter of '08....I wasn't. I like to sew, but at the time, that didn't appeal to me either. I like to fish and garden, but spring was a long way off, and I don't do cold weather outdoor ANYthing.

I wanted something new to busy myself with.

I had won a no-sew fleece throw in a raffle, and started scrutinizing it...thinking maybe I could make one. I bought a kit. I didn't read the directions right, and made a total mess of the thing. I knew it shouldn't be that hard to make something that is just a bunch of knots tied together, so I did some research and found better ways to make them.

I have an addictive personality. Anything that I get interested in...I go overboard on. I now have fleece throws all over my house.

Those that aren't decor, or being used to keep warm, are bagged up on a shelf, awaiting some use at some future time. I have given one, [or more] to every person I ever give any kind of gift to, for any occasion, or for NO occasion, and have donated many of them for raffle prizes at dog shows. I've probably made 30 of them, and have fabric packed away to make still more.

Along with making fleece throws comes the inevitable truckload of SCRAPS. Those pieces that are too big to throw away, but not big enough to make anything useful. WHAT do you do with them?

Dog toys!

Braided rope bones were too common, and too easy, so I researched again, and taught myself to make big fluffy dog balls, and large braided tugs.

Then I 'invented' some 'SPIDER toys' made from hundreds of tightly tied knots. Dogs love them, and they are cute as h*ll, but making them gave me callouses, arthritis knots on my fingers, neck and shoulder aches, and carpal tunnel. I had to wear a wrist brace and garden gloves to make them....sooooo, the 'spiders' are now a discontinued item.

You will find a few of them here, but once they're gone, they're history.

I also made some "Dog-R-Pillers". My friend has two Boston Terriers who love them, but they didn't go over very well...so they are also in the "Clearance Bin".

I sold quite a few toys at local dog shows and agility trials, and early in 2009 my daughter started nagging me to open a 'store' on a website called "BONANZLE". I eventually agreed to give it a try, but decided dog and kitty balls and tug toys weren't enough to warrant my own 'store'. I needed to add some other products to my 'line'.

Several years ago, I made cotton dog crate mats....also for dog club raffles and gifts. They were reversible, with two coordinating fabrics, two thicknesses of fiber fill, and a tie string to match. You could roll them up and tie them with the string, and I have to brag on them....they were darn cute. They were very well received, and many of my doggie friends were dismayed when I burned myself out and got sick of sewing them. I have boxes of cotton fabric in the closet, and I had a whole roll of 4 oz. fiber fill taking space behind my winter clothes.

(Maybe when I get sick of the fleece, I'll go back to the cotton.)

I did yet more research, and found some cat beds on-line that looked simple to make. I studied their construction and decided I could improve on them, and since most of my friends and family also had cats, why not add something for them as well?

So, the fiber fill came out of the closet, the sewing room was filled to the brim with fleece remnants, and I got busy building my inventory.

It didn't take me long to realize that I was going to make an average wage of about $4.00 an hour, even if I only shopped the best fleece bargains. I'm lucky if I can make one bed in a day, or a few toys, so I'm not going to get a yacht or a Mercedes anytime soon. On top of that, when I ran out of my big roll of fiber fill, and had to shop for more....I nearly had a coronary when I priced the stuff! I remembered paying about $2 a yard for the 4 oz. batting, and it was a nice thickness. In today's market, 4 oz. batting is about as thick as posterboard, and costs two to three times what I paid a few years ago. I found some $10 a yard....[you read that right...T-E-N dollars]-12 oz. fiber, which was twice as wide, and caught it on sale 40% off. That made it about $3 for the same amount, and it was three times as thick. It nearly gives my Husqvarna a hernia, but it's SO nice that I can't bring myself to go back to the thinner stuff. Most of my KittyBeds are made with a double thickness of the 12 oz., and all but the first few dog beds are as well.

I figured if I'm going to do this....I'm gonna do it RIGHT. I experimented with different ways to construct my toys and beds, so they would be durable, machine washable, and look nice enough that I could hold my head up if I offered them for SALE, instead of just giving them as gifts. After a lot of trial and error, I think I've designed some KittyBeds and Dog Mats that I can be proud of.

You may run across other sellers who will tell you that fleece dog toys are indestructible. Folks......fleece is FABRIC! CLOTH! TEXTILE!

It's one of the toughest fabrics I've ever worked with, but a determined elkhound can make shreds out of it in a matter of seconds.

That means the DOG TOYS, and the DOG BEDS, are designed for those dogs who are 'respectful' of their toys and their bedding. The toys are not meant to be left with a dog unattended, and the beds/crate mats are not for chewers who will get bored and eat them. (At least when they poop them in the back yard they will be easy to find, because my beds are very colorful.)

If you are buying for a dog, know your dog before you purchase one of my mats, or my toys. Once they leave my hands, I have no control over what happens to them. There are no guarantees that they will last any longer than any other type of dog mat... if you have a destructive pet.

On the other hand....the KittyBeds are not likely to be destroyed by your cat. Kitties tend to be more respectful of their belongings than dogs do. Except maybe OUR cat, Killer.

Killer is the reason I started making the balls. The first ones I made were not dog balls, but something to foil Killer's penchant for tearing the store-bought yarn balls she loved so much into hundreds of pieces to be swept out of the rug. My first attempts lasted several months, but she finally pulled them apart. So I put my thinking cap back on and I believe I have come up with a cute, little ball that even Killer can't KILL!

I spend 30-60 minutes on each ball, methodically clipping each of approximately 150 tiny strips to make it as round as possible. All for a buck and a half each! Egad, talk about OCD. I think I must have been a Poodle groomer in a former life.

Anyway....there you have it. The whole, boring story of why I'm doing this fleece thing, and how I'm doing it. I'm always looking for something new to do, so peruse the pages, check out my wares, and if anything strikes your fancy, don't hestitate to contact me. I may burn myself out and be bored with this whole fleece obsession by tomorrow.