Bloggers Quilt Festival - Fall 2011

Amy's Creative Side is sponsoring the Fall 2011 Bloggers Quilt Festival.  You can check out some wonderful quilts, enter your quilt in the show as well as sign up for some wonderful giveaways at: http://amyscreativeside.com/2011/10/28/bloggers-quilt-festival-fall-2011/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+amyscreativeside+%28Amy%27s+Creative+Side%29

A special quilt that I made was back in 2009 and it was called Dragon Odyssey.

I made it for a close friend of mine. She had asked for a quilt with dragons but most of the fabric with dragons on it was geared more to kids. I eventually saw a wall hanging that used a batik dragon panel and I thought that this was a much better idea.  I was able to source a batik dragon and made this quilt for my friend's birthday. Her favourite colours are purple and turquoise so those were the main colours that I used for this quilt.  She loved the quilt and to this day it hangs in her living room.

Dragon Quilt Wall Hanging - Part 6

I finished the dragon wall hanging this evening. I'm very pleased with how it turned out and I even have a couple of days to spare. I'll be seeing my friend on Saturday to celebrate her birthday which is actually on the Monday but with working it's kind of hard to find the time to get together during a work day. I know she is going to love it.

Here is a close up of the corner so you can see the quilting in the border as well as the corner motif that I used in the actual body of the quilt.

Dragon Quilt Wall Hanging - Part 5

I finished the stitch in the ditch around the borders and all the free motion stitching of the dragon. I must say the dragon took quite a bit of time because of the intricacy, thus you can't rush through it, but I'm very pleased with how it turned out. I don't know if you can really see if from the photo (click to enlarge) but it actually has some dimension and really looks sharp. Since I don't want to detract from the dragon I've decided to quilt corner motifs in convergence section of the quilt and a border design in the purple border. I'm still checking out several designs but I have a couple of days before I'm ready to tackle it because I won't have time to do any quilting for the next two evenings.

Below is a photo of the back. If you click to enlarge it you might be able to see an outline image of the dragon.

Dragon Quilt Wall Hanging - Part 4

I got the two borders on today and it really adds to the quilt. I did mitered corners but I need more practice because the two didn't line up just right. I think there might be a better way to do it. Next time I have a quilt where I have 2 sets of borders, I will sew the two strips of fabric for each side together then sew that combo to each side and then I will only have to miter once.

So now just to cut fabric for the backing, and the batting, put it all together. I hope to get started on the quilting over the weekend.

Dragon Quilt Wall Hanging - Part 3

Last night I did the fussy cutting of the dragon. I use Misty Fuse for this kind of intricate work because it is quite fine so it doesn't add a lot of bulk to the applique piece. Once it's on the back of the piece that will be appliqued, it pretty well stops the fabric from fraying when you are cutting it out, and it's not very gummy on your scissors or the sewing machine needle.

I don't like using Steam a Seam for any applique work because it is really bulky, doesn't give you the precision you need and it's hard on your hands when cutting out shapes. There is another one called Wonder Under which I use for shapes that aren't as intricate, but it's a bit stiffer and for something like this with all those in and out scales on his back it would be tough.

Today when I got home while it was still light out I got it positioned on my top and ironed it in place. Tomorrow will be the outer borders. I have a turquoise fabric that will be a 1" inner border and then a purple jacquard weave for a 3"outer border. Then comes the quilting part. First will be work on the dragon, doing some outline work and then I have to have a look around to figure out what to do on the rest of the background and the borders. Flames seem to be the obvious and I don't know if I want to go down that road.

Dragon Quilt Wall Hanging - Part 2

I got the convergence quilt part completed today for the dragon quilt wall hanging. I made one change in the fabric. I had a plain dark purple batik that I switched to a lighter mauve one. I realized that it was too similar in value to the other 2 purple batiks (one with the dots, and the other one with the turquoise) that it wouldn't give enough contrast.

Overall I'm pleased with my first attempt at convergence quilts. You definitely want to starch the fabric before you even cut your initial 14" - 16" squares. I found that there was a lot of play in the fabrics and with the first pass through of sewing my seams weren't matching up that good. Fortunately that section gets cut out. When I rotated and merged the sections, the next pass through the seems matched up quite nicely.

Next step is to get the dragon appliqued to the top.

Dragon Quilt Wall Hanging

My next project is going to be a dragon quilt wall hanging. A good friend had asked me if I could make a dragon quilt back last summer. I looked at what was available in patterns but most were aimed at kids. Last fall I was looking through the March 2008 issue of Quilts Down Under and saw this quilt done by Linda Steele. It's basically a Ricky Tim's convergence quilt with a fussy cut dragon machine appliqued on top. This was what I was looking for.

I found a batik dragon panel at eQuilter.com which is actually very similar to what Linda used.

Here are my 4 batiks that I'm going to use to the convergence portion of the quilt. The turquiose along the bottom will be the narrow border.

It looks like Linda used her darkest two prints for her border. I don't know if I have enough fabric in my set so I may have to look at some other options. Here's what I was able to find in my stash that might work. Even if I have enough of the original set of four, I will look at these because it might be interesting to see how the quilt will look with a different fabric for the border.

I'm hoping to have this finished for the end of March to be able to give this as a birthday present to my friend. If that doesn't work, then it will become a Christmas present. So now I best go and read Ricky Tim's book, make sure I understand the method, measure twice, maybe even three times and cut once, because I don't have a whole lot of extra fabric.