Dog Pound Pals

Reminder to all the participants of the Dog Pound Pals BOM – that page will be removed April 1 so make sure if you haven’t finished that you have downloaded and saved all the information you need from that page.  Please add your photos to the Flickr group so we can see your quilts when they are done.  Mine – well I’ve had a few other projects take center stage but they are still looking down at me from the design wall begging for their other dog friends to be completed.  Soon puppies, soon…..

ATTENTION ALL DOG POUND PALS ADOPTION SOCIETY PARTICIPANTS

  If you participated in this project last year, first of all thank you for joining in, buying my pattern, and playing along.  There’s a few finished quilts showing up in the Flickr group and they are so cute.

Please continue to load photos to share.

But, since I’ll be moving on to a new  BOM soon, the password protected page for DPPAS will be removed soon.

If you have no yet saved or printed the layout instructions for this quilt to finish it off with the sashing for the blogs, dog bone border and outer dog border, you need to do that now.   That page will be accessible only for another 30 days or so and then it will be removed.\

 

 

As for my finished top – well heck it isn’t finished yet.  I still have only eight dogs staring at me from my design wall.  But I’m purposely leaving them up there so that they don’t get forgotten.  Eventually I will have four more dogs made and my own personal layout will be a large wall hanging similar to the second photo – or so I plan at that time.

But, if you still need to download the final instuctions, please do so now.  Thanks!

 

Dog Pound Pals – Grand Finale

Because Saturday will be busy with the Mystery Quilt, I decided to upload the final installment tonight for the Dog Pound Pals Adoption Society BOM project.

  The link for the dogs racing around the outer border with their ears just a flappin’ in the breeze is now active so all you adopters can access it.

Since I’m not actually putting those dogs on my version of this quilt (I’m making a large wall hanging with my appliqued dog blocks for my living room), I think a baby quilt with rows of those dogs would be great fun to make — one of these days after I finally get all my dogs appliqued.

Final Giveaways for DPPAS and Knitter’s Gifts

I’ve cleared out my box of goodies and I still have some giveaway goodies for the 2014 BOM projects.   There are still two large Dog Pound Pals 2015 calendars.

 

 

 

 And there are still two Knitter’s Gift tote bags  as well as one blank notebook.  So time to clean out the final items so I can get them mailed out next week oops – not next week, I’m still on vacation so they’ll be mailed after first of the year when I return to work.

How can you be eligible to win these items??  Glad you asked.

(1)  to win a chance at the Knitter’s gift blank notebook — all you have to do is live in the US and leave a comment on this blog post.  Sorry to the non-US residents but postage would cost more than the actual notebook cost which would be a bit silly.

(2) to win the Knitter’s Gifts, you must have participated in that project, not won a tote bag previously (I have a list) and upload your photos of your blocks to the Justquiltin Flickr group.  You can load multiple photos for chances to win but each photo must contain a different month’s blocks that you haven’t posted previously and/or the larger section we have assembled  to date.  (well some of you have assembled it, I still need to play catch up).

(3) to be eligible to win the Dog Pound Pals calendars you must be a participant in that project, not have won any giveaways in connection with that project previously, and leave a comment on our DPPAS page (not this blog post).  Any comment left prior to 12/27/14 on the DPPAS page  is not eligible to be included for the drawing.  I’ll just use comments posted between today and the day I award the goodies.

Winners will be posted on New Year’s Eve.     UPDATED – 12/31/14 – WINNER’S ANNOUNCED – CHECK TO SEE IF YOU WON

Santa Paws is now available

For those of you who have been participating in the Dog Pound Pals Adoption Society BOM this year – I’ve added the link to the download for the bonus block just in time for the  holidays.  Santa Paws.  He looks great in traditional colors but he also looks pretty good in a more modern color palette.

He’s just too cute (in my humble opinion, right?) not to be put on a pillow, wallhanging, totebag for a dog-loving quilting friend.  I may need to get a sweatshirt  to applique him on.

Enjoy.

Calendar giveaway winners

    I forgot to pick the winners on Saturday for the DPPAS calendar give aways.  What can I say – I was busy sewing and it totally slipped my mind.

Anyway…the lucky winners for this round are:

Kaye Jeffrey

Theresa Litz

Ella Roof

Judith Higgins and

RFlint62.

Congratulations!  Please email me your full name and mailing addresses.

Dog Pound Plans Adoption Society Block loaded and giveaway

For anyone who was wondering …. where the heck is the DPPAS BOM installment that should have been posted the first Saturday of the month — which yes, was yesterday — well it’s on the DPPAS page now.  I totally spaced it out yesterday.    So you can now download the instructions.  And, in those instructions you’ll see that I still have a stack of these oh so adorable (not that I’m biased or anything)  Dog Pound Pal Adoption Society calendars for 2015 – each month showcasing a different one of the block designs we are using.  They need to find a new home before 2015 starts — and it’s quickly sneaking up on me!!

 

The larger calendar (to hang on a wall) has the images at left and then the lower photo is the smaller calendar  the top part folds into another section so it stands up on a desk or counter (like the kinds insurance agents always used to give out) 😉

Just leave a comment on this blog post and I’ll be drawing a bunch of names —  you have much better odds in winning! — so I can get them out in the mail.    I’ll be announcing the first batch of winners on Saturday, Nov. 8.  You must be participating in the DPPAS and not previously won any calendar in order to enter.

 

ETA  please add just one comment if you are a member of DPPAS to be entered in the giveaway.  If it doesn’t show up right away it’s simply gone into moderation and won’t show up until I approve it.

 

A slightly different alternate setting

For those working on Dog Pound Pals – the instructions for this month are loaded to the page.  There is one example of the setting sashing in those instructions, which is in the quilt image printed on that page and on yesterday’s blog post.  You can, however, flip them the opposite so the dark HSTs surround the opposite blocks.  Your choice – the sections are all made exactly the same way as the instructions, just flip flop.

Here’s the original image

and here’s the pieces flipped the opposite way

 

 

 

As for me – you know I seldom actually make my quilts exactly like my own patterns.  🙂  I want the applique dogs as a smaller, separate project than the entire quilt pattern since I’m going to hang the applique dogs on my living room wall. 

The Run Like the Wind border blocks and the bone blocks  I plan to use in a separate quilt I need to make.  They will look equally cute in rows in a baby quilt in more realistic dog fabrics or in bright crazy fabrics.  Or maybe I’ll put a large dog house in the middle and put the dogs around it.  

Anyway, here’s my plan to use the applique blocks for a wall hanging.  It will still be pretty large but I have some nice big walls.

 

 

 

 

Dog Pound Pal Adoption Society members…… the unveiling……..

I decided rather than just show this on the DPPAS project page, I’d share it here as well.    So far the  “Society Members” have been busy appliqueing their twelve dog blocks.   At least one member, still has two blocks to applique because she’s fallen behind working on other quilt designs, Camp Loopy fabric projects and Camp Loopy knitting projects and she’s just been going a bit loopy with too many things on her plate — that would be me in case you didn’t figure it out.  But I’ll catch up eventually!

Anyway, the DPPAS members have been playing along not knowing what the final quilt design will look like.  Of course they can always finish their quilt off some other way, and there are already some finished quilt photos in the Justquiltin Flickr group.  But if they choose to continue on with my plan, here’s what the finished project will look like. 

  I love the applique dog patterns but the dogs in the outer border, which I call “Run Like the Wind” just make me laugh.  It so reminds me of Cricket, the miniature schnauzer I had with the big floppy ears who could run like the wind.

This is a very sedate coloring of this quilt — the Members are making them in all kinds of fabrics – plaids, florals, batiks bright and more muted.  If you haven’t checked out the blocks in the Flickr group you really should.  They are so fun to see in all their different colors and fabric styles. 

So for those stitching along on this project – more info as to some options, finished sizes if you include only some borders versus all borders, etc. will be posted tomorrow along with the next section to stitch (we’re putting together the center of the quilt) will be posted to the DPPAS page.

 

 

Indecision, indecision

The yarn I got for my Camp Loopy final knitting project just was not thrilling me.  It’s pretty yarn but it has a more rustic texture look to it than I really wanted in the project I had picked.  I swatched a bit with it trying to decide what it might want to be, spent endless time on Ravelry looking for a different pattern idea, swatched some more, looked at more patterns, ripped out my swatch, put the yarn away until it decides what it wants to be, and ordered something else that knew exactly what it wanted to be! 🙂

   The Lady Edith yarn will become Zigzagatory.

  I love scarfs that are long and skinny.  Most regular shawls are not long enough or wide enough for my liking.  Many can be altered but some can’t and I love ones like that that could also easily be made longer .

It will be interesting to see how my yarn knits out in this one.  I do already have plans after camp loopy to put some of my Zauberball or one of the other long color change yarns to work in a second one.

So my project is set – I will NOT be changing my mind again.

 

But my list is growing longer of things I want to make once Camp Loopy is finished.

I’ve been watching and waiting for

Shifting Sands Cardigan to be released as a CustomFit pattern and it finally is.

 

I love the  way this gorgeous collar lays and extends down the front.  Tho I’m not a fan of actually making cables and having to fiddle with that cable needle, I will do so for this pattern. 🙂  It also doesn’t hurt that the color yarn this one is made in is so gorgeous.

There’s a few changes I will make when I get around to making this – and because it’s CustomFit, I can easily do it – just because it’s my personal preference (and because I am not shaped like her. ) LOL   I would have the fronts of my version  come a bit closer together in the front and my version will have longer sleeves.  I don’t know if they’ll be elbow length, 3/4 length or long, but I can’t wear that little tiny sleeve it has.  But those changes are simply made by typing in the type of sleeve I want (elbow, 3/4, long) and changing the inches for the gap in the front of the sweater and the magic CustomFit elves will generate the pattern just for my specifications.   I do have enough yarn of one color in the stash – heavier weight for the main sweater body and the same color in lighter weight for the collar but it’s much to variegated and if I’m going to do that stitch pattern and deal with cables, I want them to show up.   But I’ll contemplate yarn choices for it another day.  There’s Camp Loopy projects  to start on August 1 so need to get those finished first.

Now off to knit on my CustomFit Summer KAL Sweater.  I’m up past all the armhole shaping so it’s about 60 or so rows on the straight away before I bind of some neck stitches  and then just finish the shoulders.   I’m on vacation after Friday for a while so plan to ignore the computer and the phone, do a lot of  knitting and sewing – hope to get another quilt top or two quilted (maybe clean up the sewing room mess yet again before I start quilting) sit on my patio and sip coffee in the early mornings before the mosquitos descend while everyone else is headed to their jobs, and visit with family for a few days.

So Dog Pound Pals, I left a message on the secure page for you which basically says, I may or may not be  in town the day the next blocks are to be announced but since we only have two dog blocks left, you know which ones to make! 🙂  Guess it’s time for me to figure out where we go from here (actually I have a plan, I just haven’t drawn it up yet).