Finished Pixelated Dragon Quilt

For the past few years, I've made a couple quilts for Christmas for my in-law family. Since the recipients know they're receiving quilts, I usually ask for color choices and general styles. Here's how the conversation with my brother-in-law went this year.

Me: What colors do you and your wife like?
BIL: She said we'd like something in black, red, and gold with dragon motifs.

He was joking at the time, but when I reminded him that I was making separate quilts for each of them, he said a bit hesitantly, "Well, I actually really would like a dragon quilt." So, that's what I set out to make for him.

I brainstormed for quite a long time about different possible ways of making a dragon quilt - paper piecing, applique, patchwork. I had almost settled on paper piecing, but wanted to enlarge all the patterns I found. I kept hemming and hawing because I wasn't fully committed. Then, I happened upon the Patchwork Pattern Maker from the Victoria and Albert Museum, which is this really great tool you can use to turn any photo into a quilt pattern. I searched for and tested several images of dragons until I found one that I liked and thought would translate best as a pixelated image.

I cut up three inch squares of varying prints in black, gray, green, red, orange, and yellow. For the background, I used whites and creams, whatever I had on hand. I then added some wide strips of fabric to the bottom of the quilt, representing a building or some other hard surface that the dragon is landing on or taking off from.

I quilted the body of the dragon in wavy lines and the wings have a scale motif quilted on them. The background I quilted in meandering loops.

I quilted each section of the "building" with a separate design. This one shows the angled meandering stipple and if you look closely at the yellow, you can see large ripples.



The back is comprised of various green fabric strips. I'm kind of a one-trick pony when it comes to quilt backs (if I piece the back at all), so I was glad to have a fairly easy, but not a flat sheet quilt back.

It's about time I blogged again, eh?

Beuller? Beuller? Anyone out there?

I can't believe four months have passed since my last post. Well, I guess I'm not surprised. 2014 was a crazy year for me. I started grad school, got laid off, found a job, had a parent pass away, had another child start school, and ended the baby stage in our family. I still managed to make things, but the documenting part fell by the way side. I'm not sure I'll be any good at blogging this year, but I do hope to keep track of my projects better throughout the year. Here's my first attempt at catching up.

After seeing Angela's Arkansas Crossroads quilt she made out of Denyse Schmidt's Chicopee line, I knew I had to use my DS Florence fabric to make one of my own. I pieced the top several months back using Florence, coordinating solids, and Kona white.

Once it was all put together though, it didn't quite feel like "me" so I let it sit for a while. As Christmas neared and I hunkered down to finish gifts, I realized that this quilt was begging to be given to my son's teacher. My son is high functioning autistic and has attended a specialized school for the last two years. He's been blessed with a saint of a teacher and I wanted her to know how much we love and appreciate her. What better way to say that than with a quilt?

I really love how the quilting worked out with this one. In the main patchwork blocks, I quilted fairly tight meandering loops. Then, in the white sections, I quilted squiggly lines. The texture it created is so fun, and you can see it pretty well from the back.

The scrappy binding is made up from several pieces of leftover binding strips from other projects that coordinated well with the colors in the quilt itself. (I love it when things work out that way!)

My son delivered the quilt to his teacher's house, who leaves only a couple blocks away. She was touched by the gift and he said he was glad to have made her feel happy. And I was very happy to hear him say that.

WIP Wed 8/13/14: The one with all the quilt top beginnings

Now that I'm back into the swing of sewing again, I want to try harder to blog. I have a tendency to post things to Instagram because it's so quick and easy, but I forget that my blog serves as a sewing journal so I can document all the things I make. Needless to say, these pics are all from my IG feed (@pitterputterstitch). 

Let's get on with the WIP part of this post, eh?

Flower Box

I bought this V & Co pattern, which I really love, and then pulled together a group of navy, teal, and peach fabrics. For the background, I picked this Moda Bella teak, and I'm not sure I love it. In fact, I think I may not like it. I'm debating between recutting my background fabric using a lighter neutral or just pushing through and finishing the blocks as is.

Arkansas Florence Crossroads

This was such a fast top to put together. I used Denyse Schmidt's Florence with coordinating solids for the main blocks and Le Creme dots for the background. I plan to make another one of these soon.

New Star

This paper pieced star is called the New Star and I got the pattern from Quilter's Cache. The Salt Lake Modern Quilt Guild is making a charity quilt using paper pieced stars and this color scheme. When I made this block, I forgot to use the designated solid background, so lucky me, I get to keep this one. It'll turn into a pillow eventually.

Neon Plus

In an effort to make a quilt for everyone in my family, I started on this neon plus quilt for my niece, Chamy. She's 19 and loves neon. When my dad was sick, she spent a lot of time at my parents' house tackling projects that needed to be done. She even refinished my parents' 11x40 foot deck! She's awesomesauce so I wanted to make her a quilt right away.

Wee Wander Pink and Orange

When Sarah Jane's Wee Wander line came out, I bought a fat quarter bundle of the whole line. This is such a sweet collection and I wanted to make coordinating quilts for my two girls. I played around with layouts and really liked this one, but The Middle has a mind of her own and convinced me to change it up. I'll post the final layout when I can take real pictures with my camera.

Wee Wander Blue and Green

For The Baby's quilt, I made a variety of patchwork blocks. I've since sashed them all in a cream solid and then I'll add a border around each block with green and blue solids.

Strips

I haven't made a small-strip striped quilt before. I pulled a focal fabric and then grabbed blues, reds, oranges, and greens to go with it. I pressed and trimmed all these blocks last night and settled on the final layout. I'll piece the top tonight. That'll put me at five quilt tops to baste, quilt, and bind. Not bad for a month's worth of sewing.

Finished Scrap EPP Flower Pillow

There are times when I'd rather hand sew than sit in front of my sewing machine. The downside to the flexibility of that is that I sometimes just end up with these random blocks that I don't have any use for. This is one of those blocks.

Earlier in the year, my friend, Marci, put together a fundraiser for her coworker so she could get a cochlear implant. I offered a prize for donations. Not only was this a good cause, but I wanted to get motivated to finish something.

The lucky winner was really patient with me because when she won the drawing, I was in the midst of finals for grad school. She was sweet enough to let me know I could take my time. Unfortunately, right after finals is when my dad had his stroke and then passed away. I didn't have a lot of sewing mojo for a while after he passed, but I finally finished this pillow the other night and got it sent off in the mail.



I had sewn the flower using English paper piecing and then appliqued it onto some crosshatch fabric. I needed to enlarge things a bit so it'd fit a 20" pillow form so I added a border using the same colors I used in the block.

For the backing, I chose some flannel pieces that were leftover from a previous project and pieced an orange stripe through one of the sets. I opted for no binding and no quilting on this one as well as an envelope style closure instead of a zipper.

Finished Garden Fence Quilt

A few years back, I gave my mom a bundle of fabric for Christmas. I had finished my dad's quilt, but hadn't gotten far (or done anything really) on my mom's quilt. Several years have passed and I finally got around to finishing up and gifting her the quilt.

I used Lost and Found by My Mind's Eye for Riley Blake and the original Garden Fence tutorial from Hyacinth Quilt Designs. (I used the revised Garden Fence block for my dad's quilt.) This quilt uses 35 blocks that finish at 12 inches. I then added to narrow borders in a red Moda grunge fabric and then added an ivory border to make the quilt a bit bigger.



The backing is a gray flat sheet from Target. I used a gray bias plaid binding.

My friend, Kayli, did the quilting for me. She used various floral motifs from the prints on the front.

I especially like the double flowers she free-handed.

In the thin red border, she quilted these swirls.

And the outer border is made up of piano key quilting. You can also see a bit of the binding in this pic.

In addition to the quilt, I made a few pillowcases using this awesome tutorial, which is my go-to for pillowcase-making.

It felt so good to finally finish this project. And I think my mom was happy to have something new to go in her newly remodeled bedroom.