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free motion quilting a pet portrait
Tinkerbelle is Off the Wall

Tinkerbelle is Off the Wall

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It’s time to celebrate because Tinkerbelle’s portrait is done and she has moved off the design wall! In this blog, I’ll describe how I quilted the background and the portrait itself.

Step 10

I knew that I wanted to frame Tinkerbelle with an internal border 2 1/2” from the outside edge and that provided me the final dimensions of  22” wide x 24” high. Having selected the blue-green batik, I cut out a rectangle this size plus an additional 2” in width and height. I cut out slightly larger pieces of lightweight batting and backing and made a quilt sandwich out of the 3 layers, spray basting them so they would cling well and not slip around while I stitched them.

I had to decide on a free motion design so I took out a paper pad and doodled a few free motion designs, then chose two of my favourites. I’m a fan of testing my ideas before using them so I stitched some small samples to see how they would look. Oh my, am I glad I did that! This is how they turned out. The design on top was the winner hands down because it has a calming feeling while the one below looks busy and chaotic.

auditioning fm for tink

There’s no need to quilt behind the portrait itself so I marked off that area with a chalk marker. Then I went ahead and quilted the rest of the quilt sandwich.

Step 11

Next, I pinned the portrait in place on the background and with a Sulky invisible monofilament thread and Schmetz Microtex 60 needle, I zigzagged along the entire outer edge. I used my walking foot for this operation. After securing the portrait this way, I switched to an open-toed darning foot, dropped the feed dogs on my machine, changed to a Schmetz Microtex 70 needle and used the five colour-matched threads (Aurifil 50wt cotton) to stitch around the raw edge of each piece in the portrait.

free motion stitching a quilted dog portrait

Step 12

I had selected a black on white aboriginal print for the internal border since it seemed to echo the light on Tinkerbelle’s face. I planned to make a 1/2” border so I cut a 1” wide strip the required length plus a few inches to join the two ends. With a Hera marker I marked a 1/4” crease on each long edge, turned these edges to the back of the strip and pressed the strip well. I marked the placement of the internal border on the background with a chalk marker and then pinned the strip down along the chalk line. Using a narrow zigzag and invisible monofilament thread I stitched the inner edge of the border down, leaving a gap where I needed to join the two ends. I used a standard technique for joining these with a diagonal seam then resumed stitching the rest of the inner edge and finished off the outer edge.

internal border of quilted pet portrait

All that’s left now is to finish the edges with a facing and add a hanging sleeve. That will be the final instalment in this series. If you have any thoughts on the processes I’ve described, please give me a shout by leaving a comment. Thanks again for checking in.

Auditioning My Rendition … of Tinkerbelle

Auditioning My Rendition … of Tinkerbelle

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If you’ve been following along with me, you’ll have seen that Belle’s portrait finally came together. The next step is to find a good background for her, something that will really make her personality shine. I started by auditioning fabrics from my stash. Auditioning is simply placing the fabric on the vertical design wall and laying the portrait on it, then standing back to view it. It’s really important to audition on a vertical surface so you’re addressing the piece face-on and can absorb the full effect. What I was looking for is simple: do I get an ‘ah-hah’ feeling to tell me it’s the right one or does it feel flat or just wrong? Of course there are no rights or wrongs and you just have to follow what your head and your heart tell you is best. Here are a three worthy candidates I selected.

:belle on red-orange      belle on blue        belle on blue green

And here are my thoughts on each one:

  • I really like the movement in the pinky orange batik with the grey maple leaves stamped all over it but I struggle with the fact that Belle’s face is bathed in light and nothing in this background supports that. Or does it? Perhaps it’s the warmth that seemed to oppose the coolness of the greys and blacks.
  • The blue background worked well for my previous portrait, Jackeroo, but it’s a flop in this case. It simply feels flat and motionless and there’s no light emanating from it.
  • The green batik has movement and depth because of the blue/green shading. The lighter areas almost look like sunlight shining through a dense leafy foliage. It also has a subtle leaf pattern on it and while it doesn’t look so great in this photo, it ended up being my favourite. Now it’s time to prepare it for quilting so I can stitch the portrait down.

For you quilters out there, what tricks or guidelines do you use to select fabrics that play well together? And how do you know when they’re playing together well?

Thanks for reading my blog. Next time, I’ll describe how I prepare the background and what I do with the portrait.

Nahanni, meet Nahanni

Nahanni, meet Nahanni

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In November I made a portrait of a curly-haired poodle named Nahanni. She’s a lovely dog with a beautiful calm temperament which made her fairly easy to photograph. Her eyes are two big pools of love that I managed to capture in the picture and the portrait. Today I had the pleasure of taking that portrait to Nahanni’s owners, as they fell in love with it and wanted to purchase it.

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Nahanni seemed to understand the whole transaction as she stood in front of me and lifted her paw to shake hands. Well, maybe that’s stretching things a bit, but she did shake my hand a number of times…most likely wanting a cookie. Many thanks to Dave and Susan for being the first to buy one of my pet portraits.

Christmas Stockings going to the dogs

Christmas Stockings going to the dogs

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It didn’t take too much surfing the internet to find this great idea for making Christmas stockings out of old jeans. Thanks to Lynn at Nebraska Views for this terrific idea. I’ve made two of these for friends at the local dog park and I’ll probably make a few more. Sewing denim can be difficult due to its thickness but with a Superior titanium coated topstitch needle, my Bernina sewing machine dutifully stitched through many layers of denim without missing a beat. If you have some old jeans in the closet, you might want to check out Lynn’s tutorials and give these a try.

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Teacher, teacher…

Teacher, teacher…

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Each spring and autumn my local guild, the Victoria Quilters’ Guild, holds an educational day where members have an opportunity to lead workshops at a very modest fee to the participants. It’s a great opportunity to try teaching and one I didn’t want to pass up. So, I took the plunge and taught a class of 11 students how to make a fabric pet portrait from a photo.  I had given them homework to prepare their pet photos and they all came to class armed and ready to bring their pets to life. They worked with dogged (and cat-ish) determination on their portraits.  Seeing all their beloved pets take shape in fabric was truly exciting.

Pet portrait

Here is the portrait of Pedro that Kelly made. Isn’t he cute? She did a great job selecting the fabric values and just check out that quilting!

I had a great time showing the students how to create their own pet portraits and I’m grateful to those who came to my class.

I’m lost in wordpress dashboard

I’m lost in wordpress dashboard

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OK. I’m pretty new to all this wordpress stuff so it took a while to figure out how to find the page where blog posts show up. But I managed to sort it all out after reading some of the WP getting started guides. There’s so much to learn but I’m feeling motivated and up for the challenge!