GSMDCA Raffle Quilt -- Help!

Here is my doggy raffle quilt.  I am having a problem making it larger.  I put the black strip on top and bottom.  Then I added another strip of bones.  Now it is about 42 by 57.  I don't really like it but it was a kit and it was half price and it was dogs.

I do have more of the dog fabric, I think they intended it for the backing.  The black I have hanging on the side is for the binding but I could use that on the two edges.  It would make it wider than long.  Not a good thing.  And I don't really like that fabric for the borders.

I guess I could go to the quilt shop and pick up something that would be another border.  

I hate that pink.......ohh.  What do I do with it to make it larger?????HELP

I can almost see that
pot of gold behind the trees!

Off to meet someone who will head the Spay/Neuter Project In Low Income Baton Rouge hopefully.  I really want a dedicated person for this project.  It will make such a difference here in Baton Rouge in the Low Income Areas.

Anyone interested in working with us?

Close up of The Dogs Mystery Quilt

You know what?  No one mentioned the new look!  LOL.  That is my winning quilt from the Paint Chip Challenge!

It is so good to work on a quilt you like to be near.  I was just plain tired of Dan's quilt and all the ripping and reworking of the lizards.  For the quilting on The Dogs I chose a simple star.  However, when Frank kissed me goodbye this morning, he leaned over and got a puzzled look on his face.  

Why, he queries, are you quilting your dogs with marijuana leaves?

Huh?  Oh, hey, I guess they could look sort of like the infernal weed, I'll let you decide.  And hey, how would he know anyway?  Maybe I need to call the quilt Mary Jane's Dogs.  Or Dognip.  

Here are some closeups of the fabrics.  As I got to snapping photos of the various dogs, I realized just how many of them there are.  I still don't think I even got all of them.

The STARS are done with Essentials Thread in Tomato, which perfectly matches the red of the dogs and the dot fabric.  And the major fabric on the back of the quilt came from Ann who saw it in Phoenix when she was visiting her great grands.  It is perfect with the stars and the tomato thread and the whole shebang on the front.

Here's a little Boston Terrier with a decapitated cat?????  Let's hope it is just a toy he is playing with.

The backing is very interesting with a number of dogs in flags of British and American ilk.  Here is a picture of DiNozzo.  Can you tell which one is real and which one is the fabric?  I guess not!

He doesn't have a window seat in the dining/quilting room so he has to look out under the frame until he falls asleep.  He usually curls up on the fabric and batting that is draped on the floor in the early stages.  And he delights every time I crawl my creaky body under there to check my stitches and figure out why the machine in not working.  I am paranoid now since the last quilt and check each row at the ends and in the middle.  

And I had the wires get caught up twice.  And once my stitch regulator unplugged itself.  So I don't need to go to the gym, I had had enough exercise already thank you.

glen

Sewing (what is today? oh yeah) Friday

Frank has been off most of the week and will be off into next week.  He has a ton of vacation stacked up that he can't pass through to next year.  He can carry about 1/2 over but he has been in this business for 35 years and gets a ton of time off!

So he is home.....and you know what that means.  I have been out running **his** errands with him for the last two days.  I run errands for **us** by myself all the time but he can't go into the grocery story without a uterus nearby. 

I cajoled him into helping me sweep the floors so I could mop this morning.  He did a lousy job, says you need a uterus to sweep well.  I mopped well, so I guess it is true.

I rewarded myself with an afternoon of sewing.  I had the dog quilt that has been sitting around here waiting for a back and quilting.  So now it is done.  I just did it on my domestic Husky.  Simple straight lines in a chevron.  I pieced the back using some fabric from my stash.   A nice large dog print and some yucky green that sort of went with the dog colors.  Are you not impressed that I have a space in the middle of my quilt room CLEANED OUT enough to almost accommodate a lap quilt?  Yes, impressed you should be.

The Dog Quilt will go to one of these places:

1.  The staff at the nursing home,

2.  Southbound for their Regional Specialty, or

3.  CAAWS for some award, or

4.  The boys who live with their momma in my rent house.

Have not decided yet.  I got the boys and their momma a gift card from Walmart but forgot bring it by.  I need to do it tomorrow before Christmas.

The front of the quilt is one of those 1600 Strip Race Quilts made from about 38 dog prints I have collected over the years.  I still have dog prints.  But this one looks pretty intense, so I won't do this pattern with the rest of them.

Sewing feels good.  Tomorrow Frank said he will help me tune my mid-arm and work on the tension so I can put some quilts to bed on that one.  Hee, hee.  He may just grow some ovaries before this vacation is over.

glen