Anne Mathers

Piper is a 6 year old Boston Terrier who’s as sweet and adorable as they come. His mom captured this great photo of him in a local park. He’s pretty focussed on something interesting in the distance so I strongly suspect that cookies were involved in him sitting still!

The expression on Piper’s face told me right away that this would make a terrific candidate for a fabric portrait and I could hardly wait to make it. Here is the 20″ x 24″ quilted portrait made from that photograph. It’s made entirely of cotton fabric (and batting) and was stitched using a Bernina sewing machine.

I wanted to make an interesting background that related somehow to the grassy park setting so I experimented with a collection of green fabrics in my stash. I cut the chosen fabrics in widths from 3/8″ and 1 1/2″ and then placed them in alternating directions all around Piper. Since I had applied a fusible product (Mistyfuse) to the back of the fabrics before cutting them, I was able to press them onto the background with an iron once I was satisfied with the effect.

Deciding on the quilting design is always a challenge. To help with this decision, I start by doodling on paper before trying out the best designs on small 8″ x 8″ quilt sandwiches. In this case, I came up with a free motion design I’m calling paper clips. I used a green polyester Magnifico thread made by Superior Threads and stitched the paper clip design in one continuous line over the entire quilt.

I like to add an internal border to set off the portrait and more often than not, this Australian aboriginal print is the winner. I love the playfulness of the white printed lines as it reflects the dog’s playful soul and I think you’ll agree that the balance of white on black complements Piper’s colours really well.

Welcome to the pack, Piper!