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...?

Linking up with Let's Bee Social #254.

Santa's Little Helpers

This Thanksgiving my grandkids and their parents were visiting. I had assembled and partially decorated the Christmas tree leaving the addition of more ornaments to the kids. These stuffed ornaments were ones I had made every year, adding to the collection when my own kids were little, in the 1980's. Some of those panels to sew are still available on ebay. The stuffed ornament distribution when the grandkids were finished was quite dense.

I had bought two newer style panels to make up some different ornaments but had not completed them before the two families arrived. I have gotten to one of those panels now and will take/mail the stuffed product from both before Christmas. Sizes of the ornaments varied from a big Santa to a tiny nutcracker, unlike the ones I had collected nearly four decades ago.

Even though some of them are not tree-sized, I added ribbon loops to all five so they could be hung.

Santa was largest. But note the very narrow areas at Santa's wrists and at the pom-pom at the tip of his stocking hat.

His two elf helpers and a nutcracker soldier were smaller.  The elves had a choke point problem at their pom-pom and neck. The nutcracker was fine. He was uniformly narrow.

The wrapped gift was by far the easiest to make.

The panel also came with gift tags but I did not make up any of those.

Santa and elves were not well designed. I devised a work around for the choke points at the wrists, and pom pom of the Santa to alleviate the difficulty in pushing stuffing through. I cut open the seam line in those places, inserted the stuffing locally, and stitched them back closed. The pom poms on the elves just remained stuffing-less.

I have a second set to make for the other family but I will be wiser about those choke points and think through my approach before stitching entirely around the figure. I will also be smarter when I buy future panels to look more closely at the design and not be taken in solely by the bargain price or the cuteness. Here are the five toys made up. Santa may be too big for the tree but I am sure the creativity of a child will find some place to place him.

It was heartwarming to see my grandchildren repeating what I had watched with pleasure years earlier with their mom and dad. Even with a full tree, there were other places for the stuffed ornaments from my children's childhood. This brother and sister duo and their cousin had no problem finding where to tuck in ornaments.

Thinking maybe we can start a tradition at their own homes with these new most recent ornaments I've made, I gave away this set of ornaments to my son's family of five – one stuffed item per family member – a few days ago. I must admit I did not expect that the new tradition initiated in my grandkids' home would be Santa and his Elves playing with lizards (left), snakes (center), and turtles (right). Linking up with Let's Bee Social #254.