Lucy is Merging

Happy Memorial Day!  This is a day I reflect on the present and past family members who serve/served our country.  This is their day!

Sorry for the late posting.  I went out of town this weekend and thought I would get the post up Sunday, but obviously that didn’t happen. We went with friends and family to Lake Anna.  I had fun boating, swimming and reading the Hunger Games.  It is a very easy reading book, but hard to put down.  I spent most of Sunday reading it.

Even with all the paperwork I needed to get done at night, time was found to work on Lucy this week. 

After I made the pattern, I prepared the background material by tracing the outline of Lucy onto it.  I like to use  Saral tracing paper because it comes in different shades and it is easy to erase.  First, I tape the traced outline onto the material.  Then I slip the Saral tracing paper under it and trace away.  This time I got a little zealous and traced not only the outline of Lucy but most of the shapes in the pattern. 

I find tracing the outline helps with the placement of the shapes.

I worked on her body first because it contained larger shapes and it was less complicated than her head.  When fusing the material to the fuisble web, I wear good tennis shoes because I spend many hours standing at the ironing board.   Also, I only lightly iron the pieces down to the background material until it is completely done.  There are many times that I do not like the way the colors in the body are flowing and I may have replace a color choice.  Many times I have the TV  on as a distraction and I just work away until I call it quits for the night.  This week  I plan to complete the rest of her.  Only two weeks of school left, but who is counting?

Molly and Maggie

Very little work was done on Lucy this past week.  So, I would like to share the wallhanging I made last fall of my mother's dogs, Molly and Maggie.  Finding different shades of black was  very difficult.  The stores I visited did not carry many black on black or dark gray on black.  They carried black but with colorful prints on them.  Mom wanted a simple portrait of her dogs sitting on her back porch.

For the portrait, I ended up using a picture of Molly sitting on the couch,

and Maggie on the porch.

Hopefully, this week, I will get some work done on Lucy.  I am in the last weeks of teaching before the summer break and there is a lot of paper work that needs to be completed at night.  I also decided to change the tab at the top of the page to a more suitable name,  Dog Portraits Quilt Gallery.  Someday, I hope to do some art quilts, maybe this summer.

Pattern Making- Valuable Lessons

This week in the evening when I could keep my eyes open after working with all day, I traced Lucy and made the pattern.

From making my my last three dog wall hangings (Jack, Toby, Molly & Maggie), I have learned some lessons when it comes to making patterns:

• Lighten the picture to make tracing easier.

• Use a light board when you trace.
• Capture the larger shapes. Trying to capture every single highlight and color can make a pattern tedious and confusing.

•  Use a pencil, lots of erasing occurs, as I decide the direction I am taking in tracing the pattern and number the shapes to correspnd with the fabric colors.

• After you have traced the shapes that make up the dog, line up the material you plan to use and number from 1-?.
• Remember to flip your pattern before you trace, if you didn't flip the picture before printing it

• Trace the the pattern pieces as if you are taking the "puzzle" apart.  On one dog wall hanging, I decided to trace all the number 1's, 2's, etc.  It was a mess trying to figure out which number 2 went where.
• Try to take and use your own pictures to make the patterns.  That way you can control quality and lighting.

Happy Mother's Day!  I hope your day was as nice as my day was with my family.

World Meet Lucy

World meet Lucy.  Lucy meet the world.  Lucy is the subject of my next wallhanging.  She is Jack's "sister".  One would think that all I like to do is dogs.  In fact, I am waiting for the "someday" I complete my last dog portrait.  You know how it goes, one dog protrait leads to another dog's portrait.  I love seeing the joy it brings to people's faces when they receive the wallhanging of their dog, but I am ready to move on.   The other ideas I have will have to sit on the back burner until I complete Lucy's and Olive's portraits.

Lucy's pose is cute, but pictures from a smart phone aren't always the best quality and size. 

Even putting the photo into Photoshop didn't give me the best highlights and details.

 But luckily, I have othr pictures of Lucy to study.

This week I will work on tracing and making the pattern, in between working on my mother's Mother's Day present.