Dogs – Not Cats

I worked on this quilt for over a year.  I just wanted it to be right.  He gets so excited when I make him stuff that it makes me want to do an even better job for him.  I found all of the fabric I needed on Fabric.com.  I came across the puppies and they just reminded me of Griffin.  Fun, colorful, expressive, the adjectives just go on & on.  I think I bought most of the coordinating fabric because I was not sure how I wanted to tackle this.  I got everything in and it was like Christmas morning.  The colors were even more vibrant than on the site.  The quality is always so great with Fabric.com too, which is very important because we are talking about very active grandson.  I thumbed through my quilting blocks for days on end trying to find just the right one.  I finally decided on Block #12: Wild Goose Chase.  I thought the geese would outline the puppies great. I had also picked out a corresponding block #10: Martha Washington Star but when I got all the puppies done it turned out much larger than anticipated.  As I was working on the puppies the geese were not coming out right.  They kept coming out way too small.  I did 3 puppies just to make sure it wasn’t me.  As it turned out, I made two of those puppies pillows for Griffin and the third is a door hanger with his name cross stitched on it for Christmas of 2017.  I ended making the corners 4” and the geese 7” instead of the 3 ½” and 6 ½” as stated in the directions.  It worked perfectly.  I made the remaining 12 puppies, that is when the size became a surprise.  I am not the best at math but it was still larger than I thought it would be.  I laid it out on the bed with several different configurations.  When I finally decided on carrying the colors across instead of scattering I took a pic so my addled brain wouldn’t forget.  I took much more of the fabric than anticipated.  So far this is the largest quilt that I have made.  Right now, this time and day, his favorite color is green!  I went onto Fabric.com, searched green backing and once more found the perfect backing.  It was 108” wide so I wouldn’t have to worry about piecing together the back and I had on fabric that I had not used yet for the binding.  The stripes.  When I put the squares together  I saw that the bones could come together and give the quilt a whole new look.  I love quilts where you have problems deciding where the original “square” is.  And that is exactly what it did when I filled in the blanks.  It originally was going to be all green border where now there is only a piece.  I hope he likes it.  The crazy thing is I hadn’t decided how to quilt it yet.  It was July 4th 2018 and my daughter was going to make rice crispy treats.  She asked Griffin and I to go through her cookie cutters to find all things 4th of July”ish”.  I have to say we were quite creative.  We did find a flag along with, fish – they swim in the July heat, dog – they are always around a family picnic, and an angel – my grandson picked it out…he thought she was pretty.  I love him!!!!!  Needless to say along with the dog there were…BONES!!!!  Yep, I knew then that I was going to trace the bones and sew around them.  Who knew that would be so hard.  They were going to be on the black as well as the green but after doing just two on the green I knew I would have to pick something else for the black. Of course I know me.  Nothing is ever perfect or good enough but I was ready to replace all the bones I had sewn.  To the point of ripping them all out and embroidering them in.   (Pretty sure I would still be working on them if I would have done that)  Jon argued ( lovingly) said they were great, bones aren’t supposed to be perfect, after all a dog has chewed on them.  So I went back and fixed a few that I thought were completely atrocious and said good enough. I do like how the back turned out with the different designs and outlines it created.  The chevron pattern on the sides just clicked.  It was a no brainer for me that that is what it is supposed to be.  I made his label for the back.  I felt it needed to be quirky like the quilt.  I binded with the stripes that I had left over, cut on diagonal – which stretches – fun, and viola.  I truly worried that it was too busy, or not the right color.  The red band that you see was going to be the main color until Griffin said he didn’t like red and he was a cat person…  Seriously worried now and knew  I would not be able to wait til Christmas to give it to  him.  He loved it, to the point that I didn’t think it was going to last til night time. But he did say the next one should be cats…       I Love HIM!!!!!!!