Library Project Update : Ticker Tape Wilbur

Our online group of Modern Irish Quilters are having a sewing day in Galway this Saturday. I’ve been trying to figure out what I should bring with me to work on. Having had a glance at my Finish-A-Long quarter 3 goals I’ve had a bit of an oh oh moment. It’s not that I haven’t been busy, its just that I’ve been busy on other things… Bit of a theme across all 3 quarters this year so far!
  

As its Library project up date week too, (make something from your books and magazines instead of browsing through them and putting them back on the shelf!), I decided to dig out Wilbur and finally get around to choosing and sewing down the scraps to make up his body. He’s had a head for a while now and is the opposite of Nearly Headless Nick, more like Floating Headed Dog so I’ve been chopping up scraps and matching them to the contours of his body.

It’s been some time since I looked at this project and a previous photo where I had roughly laid out some scraps came in really handy for jump starting me again.  The idea behind Ticker tape projects is to sew down the pieces one at a time and build it up as you go.  That kind of randomness wasn't quite what I had in mind.  I wanted a strong Basset shape with some kinda sorta Basset Hound shading in terms of colour placement.  I'm not being too true to Wilbur's colouring, using it more like a guideline!

Basset's can be any hound colour - most are brown and white.  Wilbur is a Tri-colour Basset (black, white and brown) so I'm using blue to give a hint of the black and cream for the white with shades of mustard, pink and a bit of red/orange for the rest of him!

Last February I started this project with a hand sewn perle cotton outline and have written about the ticker tape process in this earlier post. The idea is to sew down your scraps through all three layers at the same time. As I ran out of fusible paper earlier this week making Japanese applique motifs, I'm hoping Steam a Seam fusible tape will keep these scraps in place while I sew and some of the smaller pieces I've glued down with Guetermann fabric glue. 

I've spray basted the 3 layers together and am using a zig-zag stitch to secure the pieces.  I plan on quilting over the whole thing with horizontal wavy lines as in the Elephant Ticker tape quilt that inspired my Basset Hound Version. I hope to do the final quilting on Saturday if I can get all these little pieces down before then! 

I like the way it’s coming together though it hasn’t used up as many scraps as I thought it would.  The piece is 40 inches wide and Wilbur only takes up a third!  Might have to make a matching one of Charly our miniature Jack Russell. I have quite a few scraps of this fabric (Karavan by Valori Wells) left.  I may have to buy some binding fabric as I used up the bit I had intended for this on my Colour wheel swoon!  I'm thinking it has to be orange!  Wilbur, the real one has a lovely red/orange brown shade to his coat

Every time I work a little bit on this small project I think about other shapes to try this on like a turtle, rabbit, hot air balloon, or a butterfly.  I'm imagining a Rudolph or Christmas tree version!  So many possibilities and fun too, I think it would be a great project to work on with kids.    Linking  up to