Sweet Riley

Since Christmas has passed and the gift has been presented, I can now share about our guild’s latest challenge.

The rules were to make an 18-inch animal portrait with some metal on it.

Many years ago, I made a pet portrait of my daughter’s first dog…..

For several years she has requested a portrait of her second dog, a German Shorthair Pointer named Riley.

The problem with Riley is that she is chocolate brown and I never had a photo that showed enough highlights to be able to make a pattern for the quilt. Then Jenny posted this photo on Facebook…..

Look…..THERE ARE HIGHLIGHTS!!!

I opened the photo in Photoshop Elements, using the Cut-Out Filter and the “Posterize Filter” and then took it to my local printer for a pattern…..

I decided to use the one on the left because there was not as much detail and I thought that it would be easier to do.

Oh, one thing that I forgot to tell you…..

I only gave myself 1.5 days to complete this challenge!!

I used a Sharpie marker to draw around the major areas…..the ink soaks thru, revealing a “reverse image” line drawing on the back of the paper….

I traced the design onto super-fine interfacing and set it up on an easel on my cutting table….

I was concerned that I would knock the easel off as I was working so secured it well with tape…..

I started out by picking the basic fabrics that I would use…..

Okay….I was ready to start….

At this point, I lost my nerve!! I don’t know why, but I was nervous about making this quilt. I don’t know if it was the short time available or what, but I simply couldn’t get started!!

It didn’t help that I had a dream the night before about making this quilt and having EVERYTHING go wrong!!

One of the things that came out of the dream was that I realized I did not want to use Misty Fuse and “free-cut” the shapes, but to use Wonder Under instead.

To get myself started, I picked the EASIEST piece….the shadow on her nose!!

The problem with Wonder Under is that when you keep fusing layer upon layer of fabric together, the top gets really stiff, but I had a plan to keep this from happening.

First, I traced the design onto Wonder Under….

Cut out the inside section of the fusible…..

…and then ironed the design onto the fabric….

….and cut out the shape…..

When the paper is removed, the outside edge is ready to fuse….

…but the inside is free from fusible.

This process may mean an extra step here and there but it is certainly worth the effort!!

So, with this first piece ready to put into place, let’s stop here and pick her up again tomorrow!!!