This week, in my ongoing quest to learn all I can about rendering pet photos in fabric, I tackled a standard poodle cross….in fabric, not on the turf at the park! Nahannie is a dog with a seriously curly coat and ears covered in silky strands of hair (..or is that fur?). Oh yes, her muzzle is also on the bushy side. To top that off, she is all black.

The challenge was to convey all those curls and fluff in dark shaded grey/black fabric.  As it turned out, this was achieved with lots of little convoluted and curvy pieces. This made for a complicated master pattern and it became quite a challenge to decide which pieces should recede under the others.

I’m continually refining my method and this time, I decided to forego the lightbox. I found that the dark greys and blacks blurred together even with a strong light under the photo.  Luckily, these areas were distinct on the computer, so I placed a thin sheet of acetate over my laptop screen and traced the entire master directly from the image which I had opened in Picasa. Bingo!  The first draft is on the design board and I’m pretty happy with the result. Here I’m auditioning a bright green dotty background. Too bad I don’t have enough fabric to use this for the background. Off to the fabric store I go!