In September I lost the girl doggy love of my life, my 14-year-old Sheltie, Daisy. All fall I thought about what I could do to memorialize her in fabric. Not being very proficient at appliqué and wanting a realistic portrait instead of the cartoon I could design, I decided that a mosaic was the way to go. A quilt would have been my first choice, but it was just not practical.
I cropped one of my favorite photos of Daisy and used PCStitch (photo to cross-stitch, available at http://www.pcstitch.com/) software to create a chart with a DMC floss list. I already had most of the DMC colors, purchasing just a few more. I compared the floss to fabrics in my stash, pulling those that matched. After attaching fusible web to the back of small chunks of fabric, I was ready to get to going.
Working on artist mat board, I drew a grid of 2 1/2" squares. Each square would end up holding 100 pieces of fabric 1/4" x 1/4". I cut strips of fused fabric slightly larger than 1/4" wide by about 6" long. Starting in a corner and following the color chart, I fit the appropriate strip onto the board and trimmed the square to 1/4" x 1/4". About 7,200 squares and six weeks later, I was done. The finished piece measures 18" x 25" and will hang on our wall forever.
I have already told Simon, our collie, that he needs to stick around for a long time.
