Working like a dog!

This is my last week of more than full time work. Next week we will be back to a full staff compliment and I go back to my part time job. And not a moment too soon- I cannot wait! I have made arrangements for my children to do other things this week - my daughter to my sister's and my son to his friend's cottage, because I am working too much to have them home. They are happy to have an adventure, and I can sleep when I have the chance.

When viewing the Stashbuster blogs early this morning, I saw that Darlene has posted her beautiful new quilt using the Lucky Stars pattern by Atkinson Designs. It reminded me that I haven't posted a photo on my blog of the quilt I made for my nephew Matthew. (I have made a quilt for each of my 11 nieces and nephews, and this was for the youngest one.) It is made completely of flannel fabrics and started with a flannel panel of the dog blocks. I fussy cut the dogs, and they were the centers of the star blocks. The backing and the border were made from the red dogbone fabric that I was so happy to find. It was a delight to piece this quilt - I should make more of these quilts since I enjoyed it so much!

The quilting was another story though! The all flannel project was very heavy to quilt on my machine. I just quilted in all the seam lines, echo quilted the stars, and then got a crazy idea to free motion quilt a dog bone in each of the sashing bars, and inside each bone I quilted a dog word, such as sit, bark, Molly (my dog's name), roll over, ruff, doghouse, etc. It was fun at first, and then just labour intensive. Here is a close up of one of the blocks. Maybe you can see the bone in the striped bar? Anyway, Matthew loves his quilt, and it is already well worn!