Just Another Dog Quilt

I have made a lot of dog quilts in the last year... really, I have made two quilts for dogs inspired by the Dog Daze pattern from Stitches of Love Quilting and three dog quilts for humans from the book 3 Times The Charm, Book 2.

 

Both of the quilts inspired by the Dog Daze pattern were a lot of fun to do! The Mr. P quilt was the first of the two and it came out of necessity. Mr. P is our pup Peanut. Whenever I was working on my sewing projects Peanut was always claiming the projects as his own, laying on fabric piles, dragging pieces of fabric around, taking a nap on half finished projects... so I just decided to make him his very own quilt! Now if he's getting a little grabby with my projects in my sewing room I just go grab his quilt and find a place where he can't get into trouble and he plops right down on it. He love's his blanket and knows that it is all his; no other dog is allowed to use it, or look at it...  Mr. P is not the best at sharing. The house, dog and name are all appliqued. This is a great scrap project; a lot of the fabrics in these two quilts came from my scrap bins. 

They both have minky backs which makes them soft and snuggly for napping. The Jake quilt has a navy minky dot back... it was quite an adventure quilting it. As soon as I started to quilt the white background fabric I noticed a very dark navy line showing through to the front following my stitches. The tiny minky threads pulling through to the front. Not good. I ended up quilting the white background with the backing on top, in other words, I quilted it upside down. This was tricky since I needed to avoid the house, letters and stick (Jake loved sticks). I ended up outlining the appliqued pieces with safety pins and then maneuvering through the pins. Thankfully it worked! I have heard of a few other ways to prevent the minky from showing through, but this is what fixed the problem for me. 

The quilt pattern from the book 3 Times the Charm, Book 2 is just too cute. I really like it.  I mean really like it. I have made this quilt three times in the last year! Each time I've used fabrics from Coquette by Chez Moi from Moda for the dog blocks. The first time I made the quilt I used a solid Kona navy backing. It is one of two quilts I have in my living room. I just love how the pastel dogs pop against the dark background. It was one of the first quilts I did with free-motion quilting. I quilted it with a tight meandering pattern between each dog which allows the dogs to be the center of attention without any distraction. I had a bit of a hiccup while quilting... I didn't know that it wasn't a great idea to use lime green thread on the back and navy thread in the front with the navy background fabric - yikes. The lime green popped right through to the front, which doesn't look so good against the solid navy. In hindsight I should have used dark blue or matching navy thread on the back. Oh well, I love it anyways! The backing is a fun paisley print in shades of blue, lime, purple and yellow with pops of red. 

 

The second time I made this quilt I used pastels throughout against a white on white fabric for the background. I did a similar free-motion quilting pattern on the pastel version - using white thread on the front and back the second time around. This quilt is around 35x43. 

 

My current project is a charity quilt for an upcoming fundraiser. Since the fundraiser supports the rescue my husband I volunteer for the dog quilt seems to be an appropriate choice for the event. 

This time around I used a solid white by Kona as the background fabric. I believe the white was Kona Snow which is the perfect shade to go with the pastel dogs. I've chosen a solid Kona green in Celery to underline the dogs and border the outside of the quilt. The inner border is a lilac colored lacy print; same fabric as the binding in the previous quilt. Selecting the binding fabric has been tough; it's always hard to decide the binding fabric. Sometimes it takes me days to decide! This time I've narrowed it down to a solid yellow or solid green, both in darker shades that coordinate well with the flowered backing. I kicked out the lighter yellow because it just wasn't right. Instead of a tight meandering between the dogs I decided on an all over free-motion loopy loo pattern.  

I'm leaning towards the yellow. The color is Maize by Pure Organic... It reminds me of the color of margarine - probably why I don't name the color of fabrics for a living.   

Best, 

HG

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