Sweet Riley – part 2

In yesterday’s post, I left you with ONE and only one piece ready to fuse.

Now it was time to get my skates on if I was going to meet the guild challenge deadline!!

As I cut out each piece, I would place my silicon sheet on top of the pattern and then place the pattern on top of my light board….

I could see thru these layers well enough to be able to place the pieces that were ready to be fused….

Once they were in place, I could easily slide the silicon sheet onto the ironing board and have the perfect place to fuse all of the pieces together.

In just a short time, the design started to grow…..

…but I didn’t think that it looked like ANYTHING, much less a sweet dog.

I was honestly ready to call it quits.

But, I took a photo with my phone and could actually see the design was coming together well.

I think that I was simply too close to it while I was working but the camera lens moved me back and let me see it with a different eye.

I decided to add her eyes and see what difference that made….

Okay….there she is!!!

When I had finished the initial design, I placed it on some background fabrics and carried it downstairs to show to Michael…..

He said that it was perfect and not to change anything, but my eye kept coming back to the top of her head and felt that the fabrics were too light in value.

So, back upstairs I went and, after trying about 15 different fabrics, I finally finished…..

When I sat down to quilt, the first thing that I did was to get the foot stuck under one of the background fabric edges!!

Then, I remembered the “applique” foot that I had received last year as a Christmas gift!! I pulled it out and started quilting again….

It made SO much difference!!

I always wondered if I would be able to see okay with the foot on but I found that I was looking down into the middle of the foot and could easily see every stitch…..

After I finished with the quilting, I carefully trimmed it down to the required 18-inches and got ready to put the facing on.

Then it dawned on me…

IF I use a facing that turns under to the back, I will lose 1/4-inch on each side and the quilt will now be 17.5-inches and not the required 18-inches!! ARGH!!

I turned the facing into binding and started again!!

I am thrilled with Sweet Riley …….

…..and was happy to see Jenny’s face light up when she opened the gift!!

That makes it ALL worthwhile!!