Puppy Blankets
This is Toby.  He was a lhasa apso\cocker spaniel, and probably the smartest, sweetest dog that anyone would ever meet.  My family got him on St. Patrick's Day, 1994; I was in the fifth grade.  He was about three months old.

Toby had to be put to sleep on February 18, 2004, because his body was riddled with tumors.  They were inoperable, and they caused his body to break down.  It was just under a month before we would have had him for ten years.  We had been together for nearly half of my life.
Toby in autumn of 2001
In Toby's name, I began making blankets for The Snuggles Project.  The Snuggles Project's aim is to make blankets for little shelter animals to curl up with.  Most animals are kept in concrete pens with no kind of barrier between them and the cold, hard floor.  Imagine the little baby puppies, separated from their mothers too early, with no place to snuggle.  I did.  And so I started making blankets.

To date, I've made only about 27 Snuggles myself.  I rallied other people at my work to help me, and including all of their blankets, we've made over 50 for our local shelter.  We continue to make quilt tops from our fabric scraps or donations that we can't use.  However, most of what we have is so small and thin that we can't back them or pad them correctly, and we can't afford to buy a lot of supplies.

Please help the animals!  I ask that everyone that has it within their means do what they can for these poor, helpless creatures.  Ask if your local shelters accept donations and start quilting, knitting, crocheting, or cutting fleece.  You can even give towels or old blankets.  Anything you can do will help these defenseless little creatures who can't do things to help themselves.  You can also just make a donation directly to the Snuggles project; information is available on their site.

If you want to help but don't actually want to make something yourself, you can send me supplies and I'll use them to put together more blankets for my local shelter.  I accept yarn (be it full skeins or old project scraps) as well as things like quilt batting or good-sized snuggly fabrics (I appreciate the thought when it comes to smaller bits, but it's rather useless for me, as I've got plenty of that from work as it is).  If you want to help, just send me a message at
[email protected] and I'll send you my contact information.  Please remember these animals -- so few others do.  If we can't adopt all of them, we can at least try to make their lives a little bit easier in the ways that are within our realm of possibility.

Thank you!
The last time I ever saw Toby, about two weeks before his death.  The blanket I'm sitting on is one I crocheted when I was about 15 or 16, and he was buried in it.
Stacks of some of the quilts made by my colleagues (to the left) and me (to the right)
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