"Who Let the Dogs Out?!"

This quilt has required more effort than its' predecessor (Syncopation). Eventually I got all the rows for the body of the quilt together though, and then it was time to audition prints for the narrow frame.

I'd been mulling this over while I was sewing those long final rows together. My concern was that a light print wouldn't have enough contrast with the body and borders. Without sufficient contrast there would be no point in putting in a frame at all! I was thinking a contrasting color would be needed. I held a lot of folded yardages up to the quilt on the design wall. A couple of them even had 1.5" strips cut off and put in place so I could get a better idea how well it would work. In the end it was a narrow, irregular black stripe on an ivory or cream ground that won out.

It reads as a light print overall but the black stripes provide enough activity to give the eye that separation between the two parts of the quilt. I'm very pleased with the result. I do love me a stripe for a frame or binding. :- )



Back when I culled my strings for strips to use in All to Pieces I also pulled out strips that were about two inches wide. (All to Pieces used 1.5" strips.) They landed in this basket, and the basket migrates between the two sewing machines. I've been sewing these strips end-to-end between the seams of this quilt to keep my chain piecing going. Just in pairs and then adding another one or two as necessary to make a strip at least nine and a half inches long.


Eventually I will sew the strips into blocks that will finish at nine inches. That means six strips per block. This is going to be a long term project, and the blocks will probably end up in my Parts Dept. for some time before going into a quilt. I also went through my super long strings this weekend and cut most of them down to about 21 inches to make them easier to work with. They still look pretty long and skinny to me though. I may have to cut them down further. I seem to gravitate toward shorter seams, more intimate work.

After these last two quilts - not even twin size, but big enough that I'm working on something bigger than I am - I'm ready for a small project again. And bright colors after all this brown! The scraps from this quilt are nagging at me to make some liberated stars for the Parts Department. I think I'm going to have to take the upper hand though and find something cheerful and bright to play with for a bit. Who Let the Dogs Out?! still has to be layered and basted and tied or quilted but I have enough time to take a short break to have some fun. ;- )