Dog Cabin

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Until next time,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie

I’m sending Susan a copy of my first book, Dog Cabin and Others:
A Fast Fun Theme-Quilt Project. It’s a great way to use those fun novelty fabrics that you admire and collect but don’t quite know what to do with!

Click the category ‘Dog Cabin’ in the sidebar to see some great examples.

Susan told me, “Be sure to tell everyone how thrilled I am!”

Me too!
Until next time,
Kay
Quilt Puppy Publications & Designs

Nettie is receiving a copy of Dog Cabin and Others: A Fast Fun Theme-Quilt Project as well as a Magnetic Needle Minder.

Cherubs on Peach

If you register you can be eligible for the monthly prize drawings too. See the right-hand sidebar.

Until next time,
Kay
Quilt Puppy Publications & Designs

African Animals quilt by Mary Fran Archer

Here’s the story behind the quilt, from Mary Fran. “This is the second quilt made from Dog Cabin. It was made for a high school friend’s grandchild. Sheila thought her daughter would never have children and then, at 40, she had Cole! So this is one special baby.

“Sheila sent me some fabrics that fit her ideas for the baby — they were home dec fabrics and too stiff for the quilt but I was able to find zebra print and other prints that featured turquoise, lime green, and brown and white, similar to those Sheila liked. I had to cut the featured squares about 6 1/4 inches to accommodate the baby African animals and I added an outer border (not pieced) that was a little bigger so the quilt is about the same size as those in the book.

Amazingly, there are lots of African animal prints out there. I used 3 different ones for the focus fabrics, fussy cutting the black background fabrics around specific animals. This was a joy to make, with its happy colors and cute little animals.”

Mary Fran Archer

This story just goes to show how flexible the Dog Cabin road map is. You can start with any size square or rectangle, whatever suits your print, and build the blocks from there.

Thanks Mary Fran, for sharing your quilt and its special story. So glad you enjoyed it!

Until next time,
Kay
Quilt Puppy Publications & Designs

Here’s Mary Fran’s story:

“My husband’s colleague in the sociology department at the University of California at Santa Cruz hosted his retirement party earlier this month. It was a significant event and lots of time went into it. To thank her, I made the quilt. She has two dogs, Borzoi, and I felt that a dog quilt for the dogs themselves might be a good gift. I enjoyed making this so much.”

Here’s the quilt for the lucky Borzoi.

Here’s another shot, which as Mary Fran puts it “is more artistic and includes a cat tail.” There’s also one block of cats in the bottom row. I love including a little tweaky surprise in a quilt.

So I have to tell you that this is a really cool thing for me, because the Borzoi is my husband’s favorite kind of dog. Another name for them is the Russian Wolfhound. They’re really greyhounds with long hair. Borzoi are beautiful dogs with gentle temperaments, and make wonderful additions to the family if the climate is not too hot and they can get enough running in.

Mary Fran, how did they like the quilt?

Until next time,
Kay
Quilt Puppy Publications & Designs

“I found this adorable sable and white collie fabric years ago while on vacation in Colorado,” says Vicki. “I was waiting for just the right pattern to come along to show it off. I came across the Quilt Puppy patterns while searching the web for more Collie Fabrics. The Dog Cabin was perfect to show off my collie fabric. I made the quilt for Collie Rescue of Greater IL’s fund raiser ‘The Collie Follies’ live auction.”

Here’s Vicki’s “Sable and White Collie Quilt.” I love what she’s done with with the Dog Cabin blocks, adding her own border treatment of flying geese and additional plain and pieced borders.

Here’s a closeup of the blocks. I recognize that dog-bone fabric! You’ll see it in a number of my Dog Cabin quilts too.

Thank you, Vicki, for sending your show & tell, and for helping dogs.

Until next time,
Happy holidays,
Kay

The quilt, Cherry Smash, came out so cute — cheerful and picnicky. It just goes to show how totally different these quilts can look, depending on the theme you choose and the fabrics you use. I made this one in a smaller size, 3 blocks by 4 blocks, so that it would be more portable. The road map to the quilt is very flexible; you can keep the squares and strips the same size and add more rows and columns, or you can make the squares and strips bigger to increase the size of the quilt. It all depends on what your vision is for the finished quilt, and what size square best shows off your chosen theme fabric.

I love taking this one whenever I have a booth in a merchant mall. It’s wonderful for showing the versatility of Dog Cabin.

I made these examples to carry around with me.

These bonus blocks provide an introduction to foundation piecing that I hope will leave quilters feeling glad they made its acquantance. Foundation piecing is a marvelous technique, but since it’s a counterintuitive process, it can be confusing until you get the hang of it. The step-by-step illustrated instructions for these blocks use a modified dab o’ glue method that takes the guesswork and do-overs out of foundation piecing.

Whether it’s these blocks or one of your own devising, include a surprise block in your “Dog Cabin” style quilt to give it extra zing!

Imagine my astonishment when someone I had never met came up, unfolded a darling quilt to show me, and it was from my book!

Toni McAuliffe was in Judy’s Sewing Center a couple of weeks earlier when I had brought Dog Cabin to the shop. Judy was wonderful to me when I was starting out (and still is), and when I brought the books in, she grabbed me and made a store-wide announcement about the arrival of my first publication. It was embarrasing and exhiliarating. Toni bought the book that day, and proceeded to make an exceedingly cute baby quilt using the Dog Cabin road map.

Instead of using one theme fabric for the large squares in the half-log-cabin blocks, she used a variety of fluffy and textural fabrics like flannel and chenille throughout, with minkee on the back. That quilt was so soft and appealing that you just wanted to grab it for a snuggle.

Thank you Toni! It was amazing to see something made so quickly (and unexpectedly) from what had been a notion in my head that wouldn’t go away.

Today Toni reports that the little niece that she made it for just turned four, and still loves her blankie.

Pajaro Valley Quilt Assocation (PVQA)
Judy’s Sewing Center, Scotts Valley, California

Rewind a few more months to the summer of 2002. My friend and fellow PVQA member Lori Hormann agreed to be a volunteer tester for the Dog Cabin instructions. I went over to her place to view the results. Like many quilters, Lori had been saving a stack of theme fabrics, not quite knowing what to do with them. “Dog Cabin” is what you can do with them! Lori’s theme was apples. Up on the wall was the apple-iest quilt you ever saw! I loved the cheerful red-delicious and granny-smith colors, with the occasional splash of orange.

Update on the apple quilt: Lori donated it to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. But not, she says, without “a few murmurings” from her daughter, who had the quilt in her care.