Lottie, such a beautiful girl. Such soul in her eyes and such a sheen on her coat.

I loved Lottie from the start – she even got a sketch. Black ink on white paper. That has to be reversed in the sewing: white thread on black material. It’s an inversion that requires a mental flip, and one that always has me holding my breath as I begin, a tiny twinge of panic, which vanishes at some point as I sew. Hopefully.

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It’s not just white thread, of course. With Lottie – I kept a picture diary of the colours building up:

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Who’d have thought the sweet pup had so many reels in her.

And finally:

Little Lottie’s looking rather dwarfed by the threads that sewed her. But what she lacked in size, she made up for in character, and here she is, stepping out of the Liberty background we chose for her.