QM. maniac quilter, and all -- thank you for the very good tips. I will definitely use them, and check out quilty.
Joyce888 - could you maybe use different shades of white, ivory, cream? (what a challenge that would be ---)
Re Maltese, my daughter has a huge bruiser of a mutt, very dark brown everything (yet a sensitive soul!) and she sent to get his doggy DNA done - he had no lab, as we expected, but pit/rottweiler/something else, and "one of his grandmothers was Maltese" - that gave us a big laugh.