Dog Gone Cute & Simple Free Motion Paw Motif Tutorial

 

It's my turn on the Dog Gone Cute Blog Hop today!  I've been looking forward to this one for ages.  Like many of us in blogland, when I first saw Lorna's pattern I was totally hooked and knew I had to make it.  After all these pups are the spitting image of our Jack Russell Terrier Charly.

And like many more when I first saw this pattern it reminded me of all our past pooches too and I was determined to make a memory quilt of sorts.  Using the smaller blocks in the pattern I made a block for our two previous JRT's Toby & Patch as well.

Same but different!

Over the last 28 years we have only ever had 3 weeks where we without a Jack Russell Terrier.    Toby was our fist Jack Russell and he used to have 1 ear up and 1 ear down so I modified one of Lorna's blocks for him.

When I was a teenager Toby used to sleep under my bed.  I woke one night and could hear breathing and you know when its dark and you just freeze and have to force yourself to be brave and look under the bed, well that's when I saw the furball snoring his head off!  That became his favourite spot and was very comforting, after the first shock to realise he was there!

When Toby died, a week later we got Patch who had a shamrock shape patch on his back when we was small.  It changed to a smudge as he grew so not the best choice as a name really! We had him for 15 years and it was funny, we babied him more as a senior citizen than we ever did as a puppy.   I'd put on an extra handful of pasta just for him!

I used to travel quite a bit with work and every time I'd Skype home, the first question I'd ask was how's the dog?  I didn't inquire about anyone else! 2 weeks after putting Patch to sleep we got Charly.

Seriously!  How does he fit in there?

Working out the design

Charly used to sleep on my stash until Wilbur stole her bed.  My blog is named after her as she is my little pal and finds a space where ever I am, usually on my lap or on the chair next to me when I'm sewing!

She is a very inquisitive dog and when she hears a noise she can't make sense of will do the really cute thing that dogs do: the head tilt .  She's super cute when she does it and I had to include it to make her personality stand out on my quilted cushion.  I oversized the block with background fabric and cut in on an angle.  Not sure if I shouldn't have given her more of an angle - it is quite extreme when they do it!

As we have only had 3 JRT's so far I put 3 hearts in the last corner as we love our dogs to bits!  G did ask which one the big heart is for and I may have given him the death stare look.   3 hearts for all 3 dogs not a big heart for anyone in particular...(not that I'll admit but I think you can guess!)

Charly went on holidays to 2 different houses while we were away in the states and neither would accept anything from me to thank them for minding her.  So of course I'm going to make something!  Originally I had planned on making Dog Gone cute for myself using aqua and pink on charcoal but have since decided I'll be making the pattern as a thank you,  I've only just started the cutting and will be a while yet (hopefully before Christmas!)

So here's my finished Dog Gone Cute Memory Quilt turned into a 24" cushion! 

And of course I couldn't leave Wilbur out.  I have all the instructions written up for a Hound Block and made some changes after making this one.  I've narrowed the head and widened the ears and just need to test some of the angled pieces for the ears this weekend.  I should have the block ready to share before the blog hop ends on October 29th in case anyone wants to make a long earred furball to go with their puppies too!

Wilbur I quilted with a meandering loopy all over pattern.  I think it gives really lovely texture in the face and reminds me of fur.  Something I plan on doing with the bigger Dog Gone Cute Blocks.

For my cushion using the smaller blocks, I just stiched in the ditch the faces and got brave and tried  an all over dog paw pattern in the background (previous post here).  It is a very simple free motion pattern and I thought those getting started with free motion quilting might like to see the steps I used to get this look, so have a short tutorial below:

Free motion quilted dog paw meander!

Tutorial:

Start with a wiggle /meander and come to a stop

From there stitch around a mushroom shape

Trace around mushroom to approximately half way up one edge

From the stop point in step 3 stitch a circle or oval to make the first toe.

Repeat for all 4 around the top of the paw.

Stitch all the way back to the start point and meander off again for the next motif.

If you want to keep this for later I have a downloadable version available here as a PDF.


Thank you Lorna for allowing me to be a part of this hop and celebrate Dog Gone Cute.  I had great fun playing with it and love my happy looking sofa!

To see more today check out my fellow blog hoppers at :
Tanya of Tanya Quilts in Colorado
Laurel of Quilts by Laurel
Kathy of Kathy’s Quilting Blog
Deb of New Creative State