The Progressive Steps to Photographing a Quilt & a Dog

In honor of today being the 4th anniversary of Miss Lilly coming to live with us, I thought I would share some recent photos I took as I was attempting to get a photo of Lilly with a quilt top. 
When we first adopted Lilly, she was completely scared of the camera and would cower down with her ears tight against her head. In just the last 6 months, she has actually started posing a little for the camera ... so I'm really proud of her.  When you rescue a dog, or any animal, you never know what their past experiences have been. 

So here is the unedited progression of photos along with my captions.  Enjoy!

Photo 1:  Let's walk across the quilt laying on the floor and sniff your shoe. After all you have a camera and I'm ignoring that fact.

Photo 2: Oh, let's turn around and sniff the quilt.  Maybe if it smells good, I will fluff it with my paws and lay on it.  I'm sure you would like that after you spent all that time getting smooth on the floor. 

Photo 3: Here's another spot that smells good.  Gotta keep my nose to the ground.  Sniff, sniff, I need to sniff more.  These batiks smell good.  

Photo 4:  Ya, I know you've been calling my name - I heard ya the first time.  Oh you wanted me to look up at the camera.  Okay, I get it. 

Photo 5:  Sure you want to see my face. I will make this easy for you... I'll just stand on my hind legs and jump up on you ... that get's my face close to the camera. 

Photo 6:  Oh, I see ... you wanted me to sit on the quilt.  Why didn't you say so in the first place?  We could have saved a lot of time. Here ya go!  I'm sitting now. 

So every time you see a photo with a perfectly posed pet, be assured a lot of photos were taken as well as patience exercised (and sometimes exhausted) just to get that one amazing photo!

Fabric Credit:  Island Batik
Design: Ricky Tims' Convergence Quilt

Try A Technique - March Island Batik Ambassador Challenge

Our challenge this month as Island Batik Ambassadors was to try something new - a sewing or quilting technique that we had not done before. 

Well, that took some thinking!  As ambassadors, we brainstormed a really long list but I had already done a lot of them.  So I decided to try a technique that was on my bucket list.  A Convergence Quilt using Ricky Tims method. After all, I had bought the book 6 years ago, so it was about time I tried it :) 

I selected four fabrics that I received from Island Batik as part of their Brand Ambassador program.   I cut 14" squares and arranged them in a four-patch layout.  

Next the fun began ....  Following the instructions in the book, I sewed, slice, rearranged and resewed ... and ended up with this.

Then I repeated the process - slicing, rearranging and re-sewing - and presto, my convergence was complete!

I was tempted to leave it as is but I decided it needed borders.  So using the gallery of quilts in the book as inspiration, I opted for a pieced outer border with a narrow strip of orange for my inner border.  Since the fabrics were bold, I quilted a basic allover meander that would hold everything together without detracting from the fabrics.  Since it will be a wall hanging, I used Warm 80/20 batting from The Warm Company to keep it nice and flat. 

I finished off the quilt with an orange binding that matched the inner border.  So I can now say I have made a convergence quilt!  I can cross it off my bucket list - which makes room for more quilting projects :)   

And, of course, Miss Lilly had to put her "paw of approval" on the quilt top while I was trying to photograph it.  

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