Jacques

You ask, who is Jacques?  Well, you'll soon meet, trust me!  

A few weeks ago, when the QT Mini Swap announced that their theme for May would be black and white plus one other color, not square or rectangle,  I knew immediately what I would do.  Now, I have a ton of black and white fabrics and in fact, even went to the fabric store and bought what appeared to be dalmation fabric, but when it got right down to it, I used just plain white Kona with black plus my one other color (and I was naughty and didn't give my partner a chance to pick it.)  You'll see why in a minute.  I must tell you that I had a ball making this and it was probably my most fun quilt that I've ever made...I mean EVER......especially when I knew who my partner was (hectichousehold).  (If I knew how to link...I surely would!!)  You see, Jess has a big family and I knew her kids would go nuts.  First, of course, I had to draw him:

Then, even before I started making him, I had to go to the bead store for a charm.  I knew that it had to be special, and I was thinking of a bone, or a heart or something, but when I saw the one that said, "Top Dog" I knew it was perfect for the collar that he had to have.  Well, if he had a collar, he had to have a leash too and I was going to make his leash out of fabric, but as it turned out when I was at Joanns, they just happened to have some thin twill in the exact right color.  I was one happy girl, believe me!

Then, it was a matter of execution and I thought long and hard on how to do it.  I really didn't want to bind him, but since the sides weren't identical, turning inside out was not an option.  Then, I thought of quilting the front on batting and the back on batting and turning over the fabric and joining the two by hand but didn't work either!  Too floppy!  Instead, I cut a piece of timtex to size and joined the whole mess with black bias binding and that was a trick in itself because of the thickness.  Oh.....I forgot to tell you that his tongue is 3 dimensional.  I made that before I appliqued his head and enclosed the tongue with the black stitching.

Anyway, it's time that you meet Jacques.  That's his name given to him by his new family!  I'm sure he loves it!  From what I understand, they're already trying to make him heel. 

And the pics I posted on Flickr:

And the back:

I put the label information on his tail. LOL