Monday, November 24, 2014

It's A-Bark Time

I managed to finish my latest dog quilt this weekend! I pondered and pondered over the fabric choices for the bases. And then pondered some more for the borders and binding fabrics, good grief. Working in the dark hasn’t been helpful. I initially thought I was going to use the coral solid I auditioned in my last post about this quilt. After I cut the coral strips it wasn’t right so I plunged ahead with the teal solid. I blame the short days. By the time I get home from work it is already dark, stuff just looks better in the dark!


Once all of the bases were attached I reviewed about a thousand – ok a dozen (felt like a thousand though) – different combinations for the inner and outer borders and couldn't get that to come together either, ugh. Ever have ‘one of those’ quilts, jee whiz?! I finally decided to nix the inner border altogether and increase the size of the outer border so that the quilt ended up the same size but only has one border. Since this quilt is destined to hang in a dog rescue I went with this Moda Summersville print by Lucie Summers that features different animals included dogs for the border. The larger sized border allowed for plenty of space to show off those animals too!

I had not forgotten about that solid coral! I did a peek out binding using the solid coral and teal. I'm wondering if there is a name for this type of binding? I recently discovered a two color binding strip in a $5 scrap bag I purchased from my LQS, Patches and Petals. Serious, make your own scrap bag for $5! After deconstructing the scrap binding I figured that I could probably manage making one! To create the two color binding I just cut a 1.5in strip of teal aka the outer binding color and a 1.75in strip of the peek out color which was coral on this quilt, sewed the two pieces together and pressed in half. Done! It’s a little fussy because the binding does need to be pressed exactly in half or the peeking color ends up wavy but this is going to look super cute hanging up so totally worth it! It is just the right amount of that amazing coral which is by Art Gallery Pure Elements. The teal solid is Kona Azul. 

I attach my bindings front and back by machine. I use a 2 3/4in binding folded in half, the extra ¼ inch gives me just a little breathing room... I attach the binding to the back of the quilt first. This time I sewed the back binding a little narrower than usual by moving the needle to the right a couple of hairs (1.0 on my machine – it was either 3 or 4 hairs). Making the back binding a little smaller allowed me to stitch along the front directly on the crease where the teal and coral meet without sewing over the back binding accidentally.

Side track: Did you notice the dog butt with chicken head, yikes!

Oh the quilting! This time around I top stitched each dog in coordinating thread. The simple quilting should allow the dogs to shine without distraction at the rescue.


And


Too rainy for a good outside photo but here are all the dogs! I did add in the coral with flowers in the upper right and solid mustard dogs... because they were too awesome not to.  Both are Art Gallery fabrics, but don't they look great with the Simply Style line!


Link Parti's 

Take a look at the linki parti's I get down with here or by clicking on the Linki Parti's link above. Linking up to Stitch by Stitch Sew Fresh Quilts Richard and Tanya Quilts Persimon Dreams crazy mom quilts and Quilt Story 

14 comments:

  1. I love this so much. My favourite details are the layered binding and the cute fabric you used for the border. As an avid dog lover, I find this quilt to be the perfect thing. So great it's going to be displayed in a shelter!

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  2. Your dogs are cute but the two-tone binding is the star for me, it's so clever and really effective.

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  3. Hi Heather! This is Super cute quilt! What a great design and your Fabrics are beautiful! x Teje

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  4. I think it turned out perfect! I hate getting stuck in that "what direction do I go from here". Glad it worked out for you...eventually! :)

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  5. This is so fun! You're not happy with the teal? It looks marvelous. :) But, yeah - it can get frustrating when a project doesn't speak up about what it wants!

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  6. Your color choices are perfect! Fantastic job.

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  7. Of course ... teal was the way to go! Many thanks for the detailed instructions on the binding. I'm always trying new things in attempts to getting a neater binding. I have some baby quilts planned to practice FMQ. I could give your two-color binding a go then, too.

    Heather, this quilt is just lovely. I hope you get to enjoy it for a tiny bit before your pass it on to the rescue. : )

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  8. The teal bases were the perfect choice and I love the border! Even the dog butt with the chicken head... Hee, hee! The binding is gorgeous. Love the pop the coral offers. Is there a name for that binding? I have always called it a flanged binding. Your quilt turned out beautiful!

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  9. really like this, love the teal!

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  10. Love that binding technique - I need to give it a try! And I kinda like the chicken with the dog butt. Gives it character!

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  11. What a lovely gift for the dog shelter, I'm sure they will appreciate it

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  12. There's a tutorial for the binding (Flange binding?) here: http://www.52quilts.com/2012/05/tuesday-tutorial-susies-magic-binding.html

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