"Pug Hugs" Pillow

I have a very good friend who has five pugs. We email each other quite often (sometimes several times a day) and once she signed her email "Pug Hugs"....being funny as she is.  :.) Well, I was trying to think of something that I could make for her for Christmas that was uniquely her when I came across a pug applique. Was tossing around ideas for how I could use this when I suddenly remembered her humorous sign off that one time...."Pug Hugs!" Hence, the birth of a new project.  :.) 

While I can't take credit for the original drawing of the pug itself, I did make a few simple changes to it so that it would be easier to digitize and stitch out on the embroidery machine. After the pug was digitized, I moved it into another module of my embroidery software where I then added the lettering. Pictured above is the end result. I had tons of fun playing around with the lettering and the positioning of the lettering.

I had toyed with the idea of making several blocks and putting them into a lap quilt.....but this just seemed better suited for a pillow. So I found some lovely paw print fabric which I used to frame the pillow center. I also used it for the pillow back and the binding. The pillow center was machine quilted using matching thread before the pillow was put together. I did a free motion loop-de-loop motif on it quilting in the names of all five pugs in the process. This was a really fun project to do. :.)


14" pillow