Silly Siberians top

This panel I recently uncovered in my sewing room as well when I cleaned out my big cabinet (as so many of the other things you’ve seen lately)!

I’ve had this one a while now and my sis sent it to me - because she thought we’d like it.

And she is right. I did like it, but I didn’t know what to do with it!

The problem for me is that there were only 8 Husky dogs. It is hard to know what to do with only 8. If I do a 3x3 layout, it is square - and I have to add another block. I decided to attempt a 3x4 layout which meant I needed to add 4 blocks - at least that way the quilt would be rectangular.. So, this is what I decided to do.

These are the four blocks that I made. They are all 9.5” at this point because that is the size the dogs trimmed to naturally. In fact, the dogs are some of the nicest panel blocks I’ve worked with as they trimmed to an easy 9.5”. They didn’t seem all weird. I also decided to put the pieced blocks in the corners of the layout. At first I worried about where to put them - but when I realized 4 blocks would go nicely in the corners, well, that worked for me.

At first I thought of just adding a single pieced block to each row, but then I realized if I just put them in the corners, it would be easier on my decision making abilities - as I wouldn’t have to decide which one to put where. I could just do the four corners of the 3x4 layout. Otherwise, I was having a time deciding which column to put a pieced block in and where to put the dogs.

I was able to get this border fabric here in Poland because at least on line it made me think of the northern lights. Some of you might know that we did live in Alaska for a year right after we were married, and I did see the lights just a few times - not really very often, though. I’ve probably seen them more on You Tube nowadays than I did in real life back then.

Anyway, this little top is going to stay with us. We used to have 5 of these dogs at once and now we have none. So, I will keep this in my living room as a nod to part of our past and my husband’s heritage, especially. His family is in Alaska - in the Valley part - Wasilla, Palmer, Talkeetna area. In fact, we actually own some property in the Talkeetna area - Mike inherited it from his dad.

I was looking through some old video footage I had on google photos and found this one of my husband giving our white Husky some fresh straw in his doghouse. He loved it! This guy’s name was Nanook. And yes, we ended up having to chain them or they wouldn’t stay home. (Which is also the reason we don’t have anymore - I hated doing it!)

Now I’m sure many of you noticed that the dogs in the photo and the dogs on the quilt top are actually 100% reversed. I don’t know why I did that. I’m sure it wasn’t on purpose. I had planned them so that the dogs would not be facing towards the outside of the quilt - like they wanted to get away. However, when I went to put the top together, after I had pieced the 4 blocks, I noticed that they were actually all flipped in my layout. Obviously when working with the photo, I had flipped them - or else the picture on the website shows them flipped. Not sure. Doesn’t matter.

This top measures 47”x58” .

I left them anyway. I decided that Huskies love to run and they love to RUN AWAY from your home. Yes, they do. It’s a sport to them. So, if these dogs are checking what’s outside the quilt, well, that’s fine. That’s their nature. At least ours surely did. At one point we had 5 and our fence leaked like a sieve when it came to those dogs. There was a time when I despaired with how often they got away! Those electric fences didn’t hold them in, either. One sat near the line and ran down the battery which beeped until the battery was dead and then he could cross the line without a shock, and another just hopped over the line - probably getting a little zap as he did it - did it anyway.

A couple were Malamutes and some were Siberian Huskies. We had a white one just like the dog in the center with a green background. (He was given to us.)

We don’t have any now - we chose not to get more after our oldest one died.

Anyway - about the blocks. I chose colors - 5 of them - that were part of the the husky panel blocks AND of course, the border. I limited the colors to 5, however. I thought “enough’s enough” - and it didn’t have to be scrappy!

The blocks were just random. There was no particular reason I chose those particular blocks except - I wanted them to be interesting and they had to be 9.5” (finish at 9”). I also did look for some that would use either 4 or 5 colors and where I could use a lot of blue to sort of coordinate them to be the same. I was hoping it would add some continuity to the quilt.

I know it’s silly, but I am excited to actually figure out what to do with this one as a panel with only 8 blocks has always been hard for me. I hate to tell you that I’m so dumb that I hadn’t thought of the idea of adding 4 blocks before. Duh! Sometimes I amaze myself at what I don’t think of!

I did put aside some orange and plan on using it for the binding. In fact, I went ahead and made the binding and am keeping it with the top.

And that’s it for you this particular top. It’s now ready to be quilted!

Thanks again for coming along with me on this journey.

Have a great day wherever you are reading this!





Becky Petersen5 Comments