Eleanor Burns made me do it.

Cross stitch quilting

The idea intrigued me: Making a quilt from a cross stitch pattern.  Some time ago I had picked up a booklet by E. Burns instructing how to make a Cross Stitch Quilt.  The patterns Ms. Burns utilised were of course pretty vintage flowers and stuff.  No such nonsense for me, no way.  I had to make something different, something unique...something that would drive me crazy.  I managed to find my dog cross stitch pattern books and decided that I was going to do a Great Pyrenees like my dear friend Staci's dog, Diesel.

Now began the search for the right size fusible backing material just like Eleanor's examples...I finally found what I was looking for online, only I decided not to go with the one inch squares (which as we all know would end up as half inch squares when all the seams are sewn) but with two inch squares which would be slightly easier to work with...or so I thought.

Choosing the fabrics proved to be a challenge, but a fun one.  I went with a green for the background because Diesel likes to lay in the grass, red for a border as he wears a red collar and a crazy polka dot for the back because Staci doesn't have a favourite colour, she likes them all.

Assembling the squares was insane.  One row at a time, each square was placed and every three rows or so I would run it all over with a hot iron to adhere the fabric to the gridded interface...then came time to sew it...

I will not be labour the details of this misadventure and the times I swore if I ever even finished this quilt I'd never do another one as long as I lived!  EVAH!

Six months of letting it "steep" and I was ready to tackle the quilting of this monster.  I went with the stitch in the ditch method of hand quilting and I was surprised as how fast it went.  I usually stitch about a quarter inch in from the seam but this time I went right along the seam line.

All in all, I couldn't have been more pleased with the resulting quilt and the look on Staci's face when she unfurled it - priceless.  The dog image is roughly half the size of the real Diesel and the quilt itself is about as big as his whole body.

Diesel - Quilted