Making Booties and Making Friends

Last fall I was contacted by a woman in Tomahawk, WI, who had read an article on the Iditarod website about the Bootie Brigade. I was quoted in the article, and this was the fourth time I was was contacted as a result of someone from Wisconsin reading it. Anyhow, she was the one who put together the musher gathering I wrote about in a previous post, and wanted to know if I would make booties for an up-and-coming musher from Wisconsin named Tim Calhoun. I immediately volunteered to make 1000 booties for Tim. As it turned out, he only needed 500 this season, but I will be starting on the other 500 for next season soon. Too bad it's not closer to spring. I had quite a system going for making the booties last summer. I took the yards and yards and yards of material outside, spread them out across the backyard, and measured and cut the strips of fabric I needed. Then I cut out all of the booties and Velcro while sitting at the kiddie picnic table while Emmaline at lunch outside. And of course nobody wants to sit in a basement and sew on a perfectly beautiful summer day or evening, so I spent a lot of time sewing booties on the patio while watching Emmaline play. There were even some gorgeous summer nights that seemed just perfect for sewing! I had the full moon, a patio light, lanterns with candles, classical music, and my water fountain to set the mood for sewing! In the spirit of quality control, I saved the wine for after the sewing session!

Since that initial conversation, Peggy has stayed in contact with me, sharing stories of Tim's progress in startinig up his kennel, as well as information about his training and racing. As we got closer to race season, I found out that Tim was going to be running the UP 200, the race we go to every year. I was very excited to meet "my musher" and see my booties in action. I also couldn't wait to meet Peggy since I'd been talking to her so much.

Check out that good-looking bootie!

Matt, Tim's handler, is putting booties on the dogs before the start of the UP 200.