Today is the start of SewCalGal's Pets on Quilts Show. It runs until August 21st so you still have lots of time to post your entry into the show.
My entry is in the dog category even though technically the quilt has both cats and dogs. This is the quilt that I made as part of an exchange that we had in our small quilt group called "Quilter's Pets" this past year. The reason why we call ourselves "Quilters Pets" is because everyone has either cats and/or dogs. We drew a name of one of the members of our group of 8 and the common theme of all the quilts that were made was the stylized paper pieced cats and dogs. This was the group's way of getting an introduction into paper piecing since only a couple of the gals had done paper piecing and the rest of us were interested in learning. I had picked Kathi's name and she had a Bichon name Gillian who unfortunately had passed away the previous year.
After completing the basic cats and dogs, I was trying to figure out how to make this quilt special for Kathi given that Gilligan had recently passed away. I was looking on the internet when I happened to come across a paper piecing site called Silver Linings Originals
http://silverliningsoriginals.com/index.html. Linda Hibbert creates some of the most amazing paper pieced patterns you will find anywhere and I found one of a Bichon. I really wanted to make this but initially was a bit intimidated because I had just started paper piecing and this pattern looked rather complex. I did buy the pattern and eventually over came the intimidation and actually made 3 Bichons for the quilt.
Here are some closeup pictures of the Bichons.
And here is a picture of the back of the quilt with some more doggy fabrics.
