For the first time this year, I’m on the ball enough to enter the Blogger’s Quilt Festival, hosted by Amy’s Creative Side.
I thought long and hard about what to show you… and what category it would fit into. Finally, I decided on what might be my favorite project ever- Annie’s doggy quilt. I blogged about it ages ago, but that was before my giant blogging break, and I bet most of you have never seen it (especially as it was over on my old typepad blog, which I stopped paying for, and so now looks terrible.)
I decided to submit it to the Scrappy category, as every block was made from stash scraps- except for the centers. The center of each block is from a different piece of fabric featuring dogs. Many I bought myself, but other quilt bloggers sent me pieces as well. The fabrics in this quilt represent my tastes so very very well- mirror gal dots, kaffes, herringbones, batiks, and bold graphics- and color! Lots and lots of bright color!
I intended this to be a gift for Annie’s 9th birthday, in 2010. We redid her bedroom that year, to make it more grown up- a desk for homework, bookcases instead of toy bins, etc. And we repainted from the purple I’d picked for her at age 3 to the blue she really wanted now. i actually made her an entirely different doggy quilt first- but I really wasn’t happy with it. (Apparently I was so unhappy with it I never took a photo of the finished top!) So I started over!
I approached each block as its own unit- picking the fussy cut dog for the center first, and then pulling fabrics for the block. I deliberately made each fussy cut center a different size, and tried to keep the surrounding fabrics to different widths. I chose 2 or 3 fabrics to complement each doggy.
And for some reason, this process took me FOREVER. Annie did not get this quilt until Christmas Eve 2010, many months after her April birthday.
Fortunately, even with the delay, she was thrilled by it! I made matching curtains, and eventually pillowcases as well. The framed prints on the wall came from a local thrift shop for just a few dollars each- score! (And on a side note, god, she’s grown sooooo much. But she still sleeps under this quilt. In fact, I had to steal it from her bed to take some new photos for this post…)
The entire family seemed to approve.
I thought I’d show you a few of my favorite of the 40 blocks…
This purple one- I love the way the Brandon Mably fabric worked.
This one, featuring that Heather Ross fabric that I love so much (and just got autographed by her!)
This little blue guy, because I love how graphic and bold it is.
And finally, this one, even though it’s super simple and more low key. Because when I was younger, we had an Old English Sheepdog named Spencer and he was the best.dog.ever.
If you have any desire to check out all the blocks up close, you can check out this Flickr set of mine. They’re all there.
Since I bought so many pieces of doggy fabric, only to chop up tiny bits of them for block centers, I used the leftover bits to create the back. I even used bits from the pieces I couldn’t make work on the front.
I used big squares, as well as 4 patch blocks, and while it’s super busy, it was a fun economical backing…
The binding is a fun blue-green polka dot, I think a Michael Miller, that I also used in the curtains.
I truly wish that my machine quilting skills had been better then- they’re only marginally better now, but I think it would have made a difference. I just did some straight line quilting, near the ditch. Probably not enough, actually. Still, she’s happy. And I do truly love this- it makes me smile every time I look at it. Each block was made with love, and each one is a combination of my favorite colors and prints.
And on that note, I’ll leave you with some more photos.
Thank you for visiting, and I hope the doggy quilt made you smile, too!
Diary of a Madfabriholic 