Wednesday, August 25, 2021

🐶National Dog Day Quilt 🐶

Happy National Dog Day!!! August 26th!!! In celebration, I have a new dog quilt, dog blocks, and dog photos to share!!! 
Check out the Dog Day Quilt Link Party by clicking on the button below!!! ⤵️
cute lab puppy surrounded by colorful paw prints
Quilt Info:
Makers: Myself + 4 Japanese quilters
Size: 18" X 24"
Batting: Quilters Dream Poly
Thread: Glide 60--Creme
Quilting: Freemotion Quilting ⤵️ A number of these blocks have beads, bows, lace or leather, which is impossible to computer quilt over the top of, so FMQ was a necessity!
Interesting Info: I've been a member of a small group of quilters in Fuchu, Tokyo since we moved there in 1999. We would meet at each other's homes once a month to hand stitch--five Japanese quilters and myself. We took summers off and in its place had "summer homework"--an annual block swap. 

We left Japan in 2007, but my quilt friends are continuing to include me in the now every-other-summer homework. Our homework back in 2016-2017 was to make 2 different dog blocks, making 6 copies of each--one to keep and 5 for the other members X two blocks.
The National Dog Day Link Party was a great motivator to put my mini dog quilt together. You may notice that instead of 12 blocks, I only have 10. That is because one member now lives in Hawaii and in the summer of 2017 her apartment building burned down! Yes, she was in her apartment at the time, on the 26th floor! She was safely rescued by the fire department. One can only imagine the trauma of that!
The first block I made is of Lincoln, our first granddog, photo here as a puppy. ⤴️ 
His block is top row, middle. ⤵️
Sneaker, second row, right, was our dog in Tokyo. ⤴️ 
Sneaker was a Keeshond, a Dutch barge dog, although she originally came from the USA. ⤵️
Close-up of the lower blocks!  ⤵️
Makers: 
Row 1--Akiko Abe, me, Mihoko Hirose
Row 2--Yoshie Takamatsu, me
Row 3--Setsuko Suzuki, Setsuko Suzuki
Row 4--Mihoko Hirose, Akiko Abe, Yoshie Takamatsu
The fill-in fabric at the two sides is from Japan. It says "Wantame", which was a Japanese computer game in the mid 2000's where the player got a virtual puppy to feed, teach tricks, take for walks and dress up in clothes!!! ⤵️
Here's a close-up of my backing, with corner sleeves, hanging stick and 3-M Command Strip.
My quilt, along with five dog woodcarvings made by my dad!!! ⤵️

Now, for 2021, our summer homework was from a pre-selected pattern of the Japanese 12-year cycle of animals. We each made the animal from the year we were born. I was born in the Japanese year of the dog, so once more I found myself making dog blocks! ⤵️
Before you say--that looks like a cat, like both my DH and I did, let me tell you about this dog. It is a traditional Japanese folk toy made of paper mache and looks exactly like this figure. It is called "Inu Hariko" and Japanese will recognize it as a dog right away. Also, Japanese dog breeds typically have stand up ears, rather than the floppy ears we see so often in other breeds.

Here are my six blocks--I kept one and shipped the rest to Tokyo. I'm watching the tracking, as mail to and from Japan is very slow at this time in history!!! I mailed them on August 16th and so far they have only made it to Chicago. Update: my blocks arrived at my friend's home in Tokyo on September 1! 😷

Now, here are photos of our granddogs!!! 
Here's Lincoln💝, our older daughter's first rescue dog! He's all grown up and 6 years old now! ⤵️
This is Fozzy 💝, short for Fozzy Bear, our older daughter's second rescue dog!!! ⤵️ They live together with our first grandchild!!!
And meet Sable💝, our son's English Shepherd, pictured here with me!!! ⤵️
Happy National Dog Day!!! And by the way, for all you cat people, October 29th is National Cat Day. Watch for a new cat quilt here, another "summer homework" swap, at Grace and Peace Quilting, and a Cat Quilt Link Party at QuiltFabrication, too!!!

Grace and peace!!! ~Nancy

24 comments:

  1. Your dog quilt is so Wonderful and love all your dogs too!

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  2. Happy dog day to you too! Love your Japanese dog quilt, especially the Keeshond as my best friend has several. They are wonderfully fluffy dogs! Thanks for sharing on Wednesday Wait Loss.

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  3. Nancy what great blocks! And great looking dogs! I bet they bring joy to everyone in the family!

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  4. So glad you added the story about the blocks. How scary to be in a fire let alone on the 26th floor!!!

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  5. So much good news! Love the dog quilt - we work for dog rescue and make quilts - it started when we took in 2 pregnant dogs and needed "extras" and now includes some for injured dogs and auctions to pay for the vet bills. So gratifying. Thanks for sharing all your dogs.

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  6. Love all the doggies and the great stories in this post. It is so much fun that you have a project with your Japanese friends each year. I am shocked at how slow the mail is these days...sometimes it all works great, other times it is a total mystery. I had a priority package be stuck for 3 days last week. I love your father's carvings...so cool to have so many of them.

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  7. Your dog quilt is adorable. Your family has some pretty cute dogs, too!

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  8. I love your dog quilt, and especially knowing that you are still in touch with your Japanese quilting friends! This year's dog block is really neat, too. Dogs are fun in fabric! (Well, in real-life, too!:)

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  9. What a fun collaboration - and filled with great memories!

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  10. Thanks for sharing this quilts history and the photos of your family of dogs! We don’t have a pet presently. Our kids do, cats and dogs! You may have jogged my memory that l promised a cat quilt to one grandcat! Better get busy!

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  11. What a fun post. I would say your dog block looks similar to the "doll" (which it really isn't) that my folks brought back from Japan many years ago. I believe it came without eyes and you colored them in for luck. Or some such thing. I'm sure it looked more like a person than a dog but it did have that same round shape. I bet you know what it really is/was. Love your dad's wood carvings. Lots of happy dog pictures to see in this post.

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  12. What a great quilt. I love the story behind all the blocks. How wonderful that you stay in contact with your quilt group and still participate in the swaps.
    And it is fun to see all the granddogs, too.

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  13. So interesting to read about your Japanese quilting friends and the projects you work in together. Nice to see pics of the family dogs too.

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  14. A lovely story behind this cute quilt! Your new blocks look like dogs when they are all together, and from distance ;))
    Thanks for sharing!

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  15. Your dog-themed quilt is just adoarble! I love how incorporates not only your dogs but those of your Japanese quilt friends. I'm happy that my National Dog Day celebration urged you to complete this, and thank you so much for sharing!

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  16. Hi Nancy, what a great quilt! All of your dogs are adorable. Take care.

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  17. This quilt is adorable and I love your post.

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  18. I'm a bad dog mama because I totally didn't know about this day or do anything about it. I love all the dog stuff in here, especially the photos of all the dogs in your life (then and now) but also reading about the global connections we have as quilters. What a lovely read of a post Nancy. :-)

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  19. This is super cute and I love the quilting. Thanks for linking up to the Favorite Finishes Monthly Linkup Party!

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  20. Hello Nancy,

    What a gorgeous quilt, and such a lovely story behind it. Japanese fabrics are so pretty, and are perfect for the little dogs.

    I have had to look up about English shepherds as it was a breed I had never heard of. Living in a country full of sheep, we often see border collies on farms. They are amazing dogs when you see them at work. Sable looks similar to a collie.

    Thank you for linking up with Free Motion Mavericks. Your quilt is this week's featured project!

    Love, Muv

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  21. Oh my goodness, Nancy! I love the dog quilt, your appliqué representation of your own dogs are just phenomenal, and how wonderful that your Tokyo quilters group still includes you! My youngest son decided to start learning Japanese in college instead of continuing with Spanish and so far he’s loving it.

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