Ticker Tape Basset Hound - Here's How I made Wilbur in fabric!

Over the last few weeks, I have had a few people ask me how I made my Ticker Tape version of Wilbur, our Basset Hound.  I thought I'd write about how I made him, so if anyone wanted to make something similar they could!

I bought a copy of Scrap Happy Quilting and like most quilting books admired it, thumbed through it and put it back on the bookshelf.  Adrienne at Chezzetcook Modern Quilts had a quilt a long two years ago to get us using our Library books and I picked this project as something to try from the book.  Then we had a get together with the Modern Quilters Ireland group in Galway and I swapped it! It has a lot of colourful projects and you can buy the book as a PDF here.  Having given mine away I had to come up with a plan to do my own ticker tape project!

So of course I chose Wilbur!  Elephants are cool and I love them in fabric, so much so, it was because of this elephant print, that I bought my very first fat quarter bundle of Valori Wells fabric, called Karavan.

Having said that, any Basset Hound owner will tell you not much compares to a Basset, so I pulled out my scraps of Karavan that I had left over from my first pieced quilt and arranged them in a bassety shape and thought this could work!

The first step is to draw an outline on your background fabric of the shape you want to fill in.  Then hand stitch along that line with perle cotton to give yourself an outline to work with.

I had great fun sketching Wilbur and was very pleased with the head and nose but couldn't get his legs right so I turned to google and searched for Basset Hound Silhouette!

I chose the first image to work with from Silhouettes by Lena and used that as a basis to complete my design.  If the image is not in the public domain you may have to ask the copyright holder for permission to use their image for your work.

If you don't feel comfy scaling up an image by hand to draw on your fabric, you can do it on the computer easily enough and print your image across multiple pages.  Tape them together and you get a full size image you can trace.  The easiest way I found to do this was to save my drawing in Photoshop Elements as a PDF, then open Adobe Reader and print my drawing as a poster or banner across multiple pages.

Once you have your outline sewn on your background fabric you then baste your quilt top, wadding and backing.  My project was about 40" x 30" so I spray basted my quilt sandwich and that made it easier than having to remove and work around pins.

Ticker tape is technique that uses raw edge applique.  You sew through all the layers of your quilt as you are applying your scrap pieces. The idea is that the pieces fray over time and you get a textured effect.  I first tried a straight stitch and realised that 1/4" was too big a seam.  Reading up on it, it should have been closer to the edge about 1/8" or less so I ripped this bit out and went again but this time with a small zig-zag all around.  I got lucky with the eye fabric and am delighted how his head turned out.

Sewing through all the layers makes a really cool outline on the back of the quilt too!

I first started with laying pieces down and trimming around them with a sharp scissors using the perle outline as a guide for the outside edges.  For the inside edges I cut straight lines and left a small gap between the pieces approximately 1/8".

It got a bit messy with lots of bits and pieces on the floor but I really enjoyed the process and trying to fit all the pieces together like a jigsaw. 

I did try to use fabric colours guided my Wilbur's own colouring.  He is a tri-colour Basset so he has black, white and a beautiful reddy brown coat.  I used blue for the black areas, white and pink and mustard for the red/brown areas.

Even though I like the shades of pink, maybe that might be a colour choice I would change going forward as G commented that it reminded him of the butchers diagrams showing the various cuts of meat you can get.  Wilbur and I are ignoring that comment!  So ploughing ahead the final layout was like this!

I initially pinned the fabric in place but with all the turning through the machine zig-zagging the little pieces down it was easier in the end to use glue. 

I tried both fabric glue and fusible tape and the tape was the easiest.  I have since bought Roxannes Basting Glue and have had great success with it so I would probably use that next time instead!

If you don't like the frayed edges of ticker tape you could use Lara's no fray applique method from her new book Crafted Applique.  Lara's method would make this process very easy!  I'll be giving away a copy next Tuesday on the blog so please come back and visit.

Finally when all the pieces are secured, quilt to finish!  I used a wavy line just like the elephant project that inspired all this in the first place.  When washed it gives amazing texture!

So there you have it - Ticker Tape Wilbur!  I hope you are tempted to try your own ticker tape silhouette project.  If you do I'd love to see it!

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