Cait, Christie and Argus.

Once my circus sketch was approved by the Bee members, I set to work making a full-size drawing of the quilt. I drew in the big-top tent and then figured out roughly where all of the Airedales would be. I then had to make fine adjustments, moving the placement of the dogs around slightly so that each block-maker would have a rectangular space in which to design the details of their picture.

This took a lot of planning because in order to assemble the blocks together into a finished quilt top, the blocks would need to line up in rows and columns. Yet, I didn't want the Airedales to look like they were standing on a grid, so I shifted them around. This meant that in some blocks, the Airedale might be snugged up against the left bottom corner of a large open rectangular space, so that it would not be placed directly below the dog in the next higher block in the quilt. I then traced a rectangle that was the size of each finished block. I sketched in the location of where the dog was to be placed and its size in each rectangle, and mailed each to the artists who drew in the details of each Airedale.

The artists returned their drawings to me and I taped them all together to make sure that they would work together in the quilt and again made minor adjustments in placement and size of the dogs. Then I traced each rectangle and dog onto stabilizer that served as both the pattern for the block and as the back layer as the block was constructed. I mailed that pattern plus background fabrics to the block-makers.

When they returned their finished blocks to me, I aligned the register marks on the patterns and was able to sew the blocks together into one big piece.


I then appliqued the tent onto the quilt top and added in details like the tight rope that couldn't be added until the tent was in place. I then added the dogs that crossed the boundaries of two blocks, such as the two with their backs to you that are watching the acrobats and the two that are sneaking under the right edge of the tent.

This whole process was fairly complicated. I felt that since I designed the original drawing, I would also have to assemble the quilt top because it would be easier than trying to explain to someone else how all of the pieces fit together. In the end, we ended up with a lovely quilt top.