Dog Gone Cute!

You know when you see a fabric range and you have to buy it (Noteworthy anyone?)  Well, I got that bug last week when I saw Lorna's Dog Gone Cute pattern.  As a Jack Russell Terrier owner how could I resist this one?  Even though Lorna is very generously giving the instructions for this away on her blog in a series in September, I bought it straightway, thinking I'd make a memory quilt of sorts of our two previous JRT (Toby and Patch) and our current boss of the house, Charly.

Then it occurred to me not to leave Wilbur out so inspired by Lorna's fun take on terriers I tried my hand at a Basset Hound.

To get to a Basset I somehow started with a Beagle and then kept on going, making the ears longer and the jowls more jowlier(?)

 Always amazes me how wide headed some beagles can look!

 Bassets have really long pointy heads so a high forehead was called for.

Working with strip and flip squares was great fun.  Trying to figure the angles on the strip and flip rectangles not so much and I spent pretty much the whole day Saturday with a pen and calculator, trying and testing.  The nose gave me the most trouble!

I decided to use a lightweight denim fabric as the background which was a mistake as it stretches a bit so ended up using the walking foot on my Pfaff for piecing!

Testing a block and designing it at the same time uses up quite a bit of fabric and the discards were growing by lunchtime!  (all that black is 3 attempts at a nose!)

Still I got there in the end and thought my Wilbur block might make a nice cushion as its 18.5" square but I think I might lose something of it in a curved form and am now wondering about working him into a dog quilt with some of Lorna's blocks....

 I went back to the virtual drawing board and played a bit with the face as I think the long big eared Basset look could be stronger and came up with this one on the right.  Think this might be more Spaniel than Basset.  What do you think?  Left or right for Wilbur?

 Then it was try a few more dog shapes and maybe change the shape of the nose.  Big or small?

Speaking of big noses I couldn't resist this and had to design a St.Bernard too.  This is really addictive!  I am so looking forward to Lorna's blog hop on September 1st.  Lorna has kindly agreed to share the block of my longer eared furball if I can get it written and tested in time.  Would you make spaniel or a hound?  If so any of these catch your eye?  This weekend I hope to check and double check my scribblings again by making Ben.  I still miss that Basset!

Mum, Charly, Me & Ben!