Wow, that was a quick weekend. I can't believe Monday has rolled around
again already. I spent a good couple of
hours on Saturday breaking the back of the stack of 252 squares and flying
geese that needed to be sewn together into rows for my Bounce quilt. More on that later!
So Sunday dawned and I really had had
enough of Bounce and decided to work on something for myself. As you can tell from my blog title we're a
doggy household and I just love quilt projects with anything to do with dogs. I have had this project on the back burner
for a while: "A Dog’s Life" by Lynnette Anderson.
It makes a lap/baby quilt and comes in 4
parts. It was originally a Block of the
Month program and when I saw it while browsing Lynnette's website I knew I had
to have it. I searched all the quilt
supply shops for this locally (Lynette is based in Australia) and I found it in
Switzerland from Cotton and Colour (not that Switzerland is local but it is
closer!) Lynette uses lovely muted colours with a lot of grey in them. I like my colours just a bit warmer and so chose Nancy Halverson's Forever Spring collection. My local quilt shop didn't have any of the
red in stock so I searched the online shops again and luckily I stumbled on a shop in
the UK called Quilter's Trading Post.
They had nearly all of the range and I bought a Fat Eight of each
pattern they had. I started in on block
1 and completed it before Christmas (see above). Then I got distracted with other projects and
since then it has sat in my plastic tub of stash. Well it's been on my mind and procrastinating
about finishing Bounce and the desire to do a "me" project allowed me
to spend half of Sunday pulling fabric and patterns and just having fun.
The pattern comes with two sheets showing
the layout and the embroidery stitching for details like the eyes and
flowers. There is also a sheet showing
the appliqué shapes to be cut for the dogs and cats. I chose to use washable fusible glue sheets
to hold my fabric to the background before stitching all around the shapes with
a blanket stitch. Needle turn method
would be lovely but as this is my first appliqué project I'm going with the
simplest and quickest method for me.
The fusible glue sheets come with a paper
backing on one side and a rough un-papered side on the other. To begin with I ironed the rough side to the
back of the fabric prints I wanted for my shapes. For the appliqué method I was
using you have to reverse the appliqué shapes to trace on the back of the
bonded material so first I traced the shapes to paper then
I reversed the paper templates and laid them on the back of the material with
the backing paper facing out. I traced
around the templates and cut out the fabric pieces.
Next I traced the layout pattern provided
with parchment paper to give a semi-transparent image I could use to help
layout the shapes correctly. I removed
the backing paper from my fabric shapes and arranged them on the background fabric as
per the design paying particular care to what should lie on top.
I
then ironed it all down piece by piece and I think it looks great already. Now I can embroider around the shapes with a
blanket stitch to keep them in place as in block 1 and add in the details while
I'm watching TV or have a few moments to spare during the week. So glad I took a break from Bounce to catch
up on this!
