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.

Finished Pixelated Camera Quilt

This week I'll be sharing my Christmas quilt finishes. I made four quilts for gifts this year. First up is the pixelated camera quilt for my father-in-law.

When I first started attending family functions with the mister's family before we were married, I had to quickly get used to all the cameras being used by various family members. Knowing I was getting my picture taken, it was hard not to pose or at least make sure I was presentable for the picture. See, the mister's family likes the candid shots. After a year or two, I finally got comfortable enough that I rarely notice now if I'm having my picture taken. And a bonus is that my kids are comfortable around cameras too and we'll have a lot of photos of them during all stages of their lives.

In the years that I've been quilting, I've never made a quilt for my father-in-law, while my mother-in-law has three quilts from me. So this year I decided to remedy that and a camera quilt seemed the most fitting for him.

I went with a mix of gray prints for the camera and background and a few blue prints for the lens.



The backing is a great camera print from Robert Kaufman. I decided to leave the selvage on, but can't decide if I like it or not. I was trying to be frugal, but looking at the backing in this print, it jumps right out at me.



I quilted the lens in a spiraling circle. The rest of the quilt is comprised of meandering ripple quilting. I used two light blue prints for the binding.

This quilt was a big hit with my father-in-law when we celebrated Christmas with the mister's family, and it was my final pixelated quilt for the year.

Finished Pixelated American Football Quilt

I finally got my computer back so now I can share this quilt finish with you.

One of my nephews is a huge football fan. He played all growing up and in high school and now he's in college. In trying to personalize a quilt for him, I used his favorite colors (orange, green, and purple) to put together this pixelated football quilt.



I used the orange for the football, of course, and probably should have only used green in the background so it'd look like grass, but I didn't think of that until I had already pieced the top.

















I used an orange sheet for the backing that I picked up at Target or Walmart.



To frame the quilt, I chose an orange binding from the Chicopee collection by Denyse Schmidt.



I quilted a meandering stipple on the entire quilt. I've been trying to practice, but I think perhaps I should practice on small quilt sandwiches until I get a better handle on it. It's not terrible, but I don't think it looks great yet.



Quilt Stats:
Approximately 67x67 inches
4.5 inch finished squares
Variety of orange, green, and purple prints and solids
Orange Chicopee, machine-sewn binding
Meandering stipple quilting

Finished Pixelated Heart Quilt

Happy Valentine’s Day!

In my WIP tracking post, I briefly mentioned this pixelated heart quilt and that I was making it before I knew what I was doing. You see, I had seen Amanda’s version of Jolene’s heart quilt a couple weeks ago and I just absolutely fell in love with it. Then I saw my friend Kara’s version on Instagram and wanted to make my own that much more. I’m not much of a fan of hearts, but I really loved Amanda’s quilt top. I loved it so much that I couldn’t stop thinking about it that Friday. (Do you ever do that?) When I got home from work, I pulled fabrics and then started cutting squares that night.

I didn’t think I would have enough low volume prints to use as the background, so I opted to reverse the design. After cutting all my charms, though, I saw that I easily would have had plenty of low volume prints to do it the original way. Oh well. I guess I made it my own.



This is not my typical color scheme at all. It has a deep, jewel-tone feel to me and usually I’m drawn to brights. So this was a fun step-outside-my-comfort-zone project that I actually really ended up liking when it was all finished.

For the back, I used several fat quarters of Michael Miller cotton couture solids in purples and pinks that I won in the Fall for Solids Challenge. This was the perfect use for them as I rarely use pink and purple in my quilts. I threw in a few more pink fat quarters and other scraps as well to fill in the holes.



I made a scrappy binding out of some red, purple, and pink Free Spirit blenders that were also in the Fall for Solids prize pack.

As for the quilting, I think there are four different thread colors in this one: red, burgundy, purple, and white. I used the reds and purple in the background and white in the heart. I quilted the quilt in meandering loops.

The quilt measures about 66 inches square and has been a nice couch quilt that we’ve been enjoying this past week.