Twelve Dogs of Christmas

I bought this panel several years ago in my "buy every cloth book you see" phase.

The lyrics are delightful, a parody of the Twelve Days of Christmas, but I felt that for a child of cloth book age, it was too wordy, i.e. having more text than pictures. I decided instead to repurpose the panel into a set of six placemats for my son's family with children ages 4½ years, 2½ years, and 8 months and a dog.  I have repurposed book panels in the past. In my 11/19/14 post for The Mitten, I made a a cloth book panel into a "graphic novel" for my granddaughter, who was too old for a cloth book but was into graphic novels like her dad.

This "book" comes from a panel printed by Elizabeth's Studio. I gravitate toward the fabrics of this mill who adapts the artwork of talented artists into screen printed images. These illustrations of twelve dogs in various poses is from the work of artist Kevin Whitlark.

Here is the fabric I chose to border the pages of the book, a Christmassy polka random dot by Ann Kelle for Robert Kaufman.

I wondered what to put on the backing. The red and white dot, stripe, and check options on the left were too regular and could drift from square. The prints on the right were contenders, especially the middle one with dog tags. The red of the dog tag print was too dull a red, however. The milk bottle print was a good green but seemed more fitting for cats. The gold plaid was a good gold but again was somewhat linear and frankly, somewhat uninteresting.

Then I found in my stash this backing option. Perfect. The yellow gave a happy feel and their dog's name is Snoopy. 

The panel consists of six double book pages, ordered so they are in the correct sequence when made into a book. I cut them into twelve single pages and regrouped with two on a placemat. I had to do some finagling since cover pages are bigger and needed small borders to make all six placemats the same size. The difference is shown in the next photo with the two different width vertical dot borders.

And here are the six completed placemats. The final photo shows the reverse side. I stitched in the ditch in the borders and down the center. I was considering some free motion quilting in the central portion of the panels themselves but did not want to "scribble" over the artwork. I then realized the bamboo batting I used allowed quilting up to 8" spacing. The placemats met that criterion so I quit while I was ahead and declared them finished.

  

Alright. I will admit that perhaps eleven puppies pooping is not appropriate for placemats but it may spark some tongue in cheek dinner conversation as might the Snoopy dog tags on the back.

Although Snoopy may not resemble the beagle of Charlie Brown fame, he is still the inspiration for the backing choice. This regal photo of him was taken on Thanksgiving Day. There is only one Snoopy in this family but perhaps he can be considered the thirteenth dog of Christmas...?

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