First Design Attempt

Translating a free clipart pug to fabric has proved harder than I thought.  I figured I'd just trace the body,  the dark/light areas, put fusible backing on the fabric for a perfect fit.  Errr.  No.

Pugs have tons of wrinkles and their brown/black coloring around the eyes is hard to pull off with fabric without it looking"off"or making them even more fugly looking.  I recognize putting a 3D object into fabric isn't easy, but I wasn't planning on a few"wrinkles".  I want the pugs to look soft and inviting, not a fabric monstrosity of bulging eyes and funky wrinkles.

I also know I'm a perfectionist when it comes to things like this making myself doubt more.

I went digging through my stash and found the perfect body color and then realized I only had 1/3 of a yard.  I love Moda Marbles but they aren't found easily here.  I may have to order some.  There's another quilt store 40 miles away that has some beautiful creams that would work.  Anyone have a car?

First off when doing a project, dump your cat off the light table:

  
Next if you need a light table, get out your clear acrylic extension table and an Ott light:

Trace your picture with a permanent pen onto the stuff that you use for overhead projectors.  Impossible to find here, so in a pinch use the clear paper inserts:

Make sure you TURN over the traced picture so you don't get a reverse image when you trace it onto fusible webbing.

After multiple attempts at fabric choices and your OCD perfection issues, here's a basic layout that still needs far more work but you get the idea:

 The other problem I didn't even think about was that I bought some yardage with a gradual color change from cream to dark brown (It's perfect!) but didn't realize there were faint stripes down it.  You can see the lines in the picture.  Argghh!

I think I'm going to walk down to the other LQS and find several variegated brown batiks that might work. 

Another idea I thought of was to do a crayon quilt.  You use Crayola crayons to do the picture and shade in everything.  Then you press an iron over the picture to heat set the wax into the fabric.  I have 8 years of crayons stuffed into a drawer nearby.  It is permanent, but I think you have to wash the quilt by hand.