Ellie and Tex

"Comfort" was a little hard for me initially. I immediately thought of comfort when sad or grieving. Since I'm an upbeat person and pretty much never sad or depressed, it didn't really seem to apply. I then started thinking about what keeps me happy and "comfort"able--friends, family, my pets, and the outdoors.

I first envisioned my quilt with me in the center, surrounded by a circle of friends. Didn't like it. Then I started working with the concept of a row quilt--a row of girls, row of flowers, and a row of dogs. The blocks (and thus the pieces) ended up being really tiny, and since I only have two dogs, a whole row of them wasn't right. So I simplified. Just me and my dogs, with the flowers representing being outside. I designed it in EQ6, using flowers from one of the Sew Precise libraries, modifying one of their paper-pieced dog patterns to more closely resemble mine, and copied a "big sister" block from an old Jean Ray Laury book called "Incredible Quilts for Kids of All Ages." I printed everything up, pulled fabric from my stash, and took it along with me on our 2 month long Arizona trip. I wish I had made my dress red instead of purple because I wear red and usually not purple, and I think it would look better, and I'm still not sure about the polka dot binding, but that's what I had with me. But overall, I'm pleased with the result.