NORWEGIAN BUHUNDS
In my notes of 14th September 2020, I wrote that sadly Carolyn Solomon had said goodbye to Tegan (Trelowen Keres) she was 14yrs and 8months. A couple of weeks ago I heard from Carolyn that Jacqui Avery had very kindly given her Torren (Ch Tokyn Sequoia),she had by then been with Carolyn six weeks and had settled in really well, as though she had been there forever and she and Freya had become best of friends, and before lockdown had been enjoying walks in the woods and on the beach, I am sure once it is lifted they will be enjoying them again.
We all know that during the Pandemic many people have been making scrubs for the NHS, friends and family, including Sue Avery, Chris Chapman and Lisa Strong. Below Lisa tells how it all started for her: –
“The first lockdown happened in March 2020, the company I work for decided to furlough me as I am vulnerable and at the same time my diary was promptly wiped clean, so I suddenly had all this time on my hands. Some people set up ‘For the Love of Scrubs’ on Facebook with the aim being to sew scrubs, laundry bags, surgical hats, face masks etc for NHS workers, carers and key workers. Each hub worked differently, and I lucked out with my hub as initially we provided our own materials but quickly things were set up that we could request materials, and then either we would go to our hub coordinators house knock on the door and step away whilst they put a bag with our materials outside, or the materials would be dropped off on our doorstep if we were isolating or could not get to the coordinators house, all the material had been prewashed for us at 60°C. I then commenced sewing laundry bags initially(I did not have a sewing machine so I sewed by hand) I then moved on to sewing face masks. As masks started to be required on public transport and later in supermarkets and some indoor places, some family members asked if I could make some for them, so I did. Then a neighbour said if she provided material could I sew some for her, her husband and her children. Word then got around so several neighbours asked if I could make them some masks and they would pay for them, and some of my husband’s work colleagues saw his masks and asked him where he got them, he then came home from work asking how I felt about some of his colleagues buying some of my masks. I got called off furlough at this point so gave up sewing for the ‘Love of Scrubs’ hub as I felt I could no longer do the volume needed, and by this point they were no longer needing as many sewers as possible anyway. I set about buying material to make masks for colleagues and neighbours. At this time Blackpool show and Bournemouth Show were hoping to go ahead, so I thought it would be nice to have a face mask with a Buhund print on it for when I was in the ring, Jacqui Walmsley suggested Spoonflower as a site for the fabric and I ordered some and made my first Buhund face mask. I took a selfie of myself and put it on Facebook and immediately people wanted to know where I had bought it, when I said I had made it order requests started coming in from around the world. All my masks have 3 layers of cotton and are handmade with a metal strip for a nose band in, they are machine washable but to preserve the metal nose band I do not recommend tumble drying. I have made it into the ring wearing one of my masks once for the Norwegian Buhund Club show. My Buhund masks in several patterns have so far gone to Canada, USA, Norway, Sweden, Demark, Germany, Japan and all over the UK as I can easily check posting prices online for each country, so who knows when at a show you may see one of my masks in the future”.
Such a very worthwhile thing to do, thank you Lisa so much.
Stay safe everyone.
Margaret Deuchar margaretdeuchar@gmail.com
The views expressed in Margaret’s Breed Notes are hers and hers alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Norwegian Buhund Club of the UK.