Vizsla

 My friend Stephanie commissioned a quilt to be used as a fund raiser for Vizsla Rescue.
Making a solid brown short haired dog that doesn't look like a brown blob turns out to be quite an adventure.  I collected fabrics on my quilt shop road trip a month ago.  80% were what I felt were the wrong shades of rust when I started pulling colors.

 The dog's face went together relatively easily.  I only needed small pieces and had some in the stash that I thought were perfect.  Like the nose and the end of the muzzle with dots to suggest whiskers.  This face is a composite of 3 of Stephanie's dogs.

The body was far more of a challenge, needing  bigger pieces and subtle gradations to suggest shading and dimension.  Fabrics I didn't like up close, look great at a distance.  To save time/money, I used raw edge applique and free motion machine quilting.  Having learned the hard way from the Octopus quilt, I cut away all but 1 cm around the outer edge of the individual pieces on the body/legs to keep it from feeling too stiff.   I also used machine embroidery thread rather than regular cotton thread.  It is thicker and adds some sheen.  There are 3 shades of rust which I also used for some shading.  Again, only noticeable up close. You can see the suggestion of texture from the wiggly line stitching that I used to suggest fur.  That texture will improve when it's washed & dried. I did some thread painting which for the most part is just a second or 3rd round of thread around the outside edges, But some other details you may notice if you enlarge the face photo. 

Next challenge is to decide on the background quilting.  I picked the fabric to represent a field.  I'm imagining a gradation of plants.  Leaves, grass, shrubs, sky.  Maybe cat-tails.  Stay tuned.