Mistake or Creative License?

I have finished Tom's Dragon Quilt wall hanging. The binding is the same fabric as the little boy's shirt. Some of the 3-D effects turned out so much better than I expected! Of course the camera doesn't capture all that very well. There are puffy clouds, the dragon's eyes, the boy's head, and the little dragons at the bottom, that are all 3-D-ish!

I worked more on the House Medallion quilt too. Here are some of the fan blades I've sewn together in groups of five:

I really had to give a lot of thought as to how to proceed from here. I didn't want to applique the fans 100% and I know I will want to quilt the blades via 'stitch-in-the-ditch. I didn't want to sew the blades down, attaching them to the quilt, until actually quilting it.What I came up with was to use 6.5" squares of Kona white fabric as the background. Above is a fan blade set placed on the white square.

I then folded the edges of the two outer blades of the fans under.

I am making a fabric sandwich! First the white square, then one fan set, right side up, then the next fan set, right side down, and finally another white square on top.
Next I sewed along one side, matching the white squares and matching the fan blades.
I then trimmed the blocks and pressed them open.

Now I have sets of rectangle fan blocks to use for this border.

However, in working on this part of the layout, I discovered that I figured these blocks out, WRONG!!! I am one block short on each side. I am going to get around this by making a flower block that compliments the pink flower buds that are in the center of the quilt. I will put one in the center of each side. I thought that was rather clever. lol I will also hand applique down the fan blade top edges.

For my Post Spooky, I took a photo of my little witch, Zelda. She will be sitting outside our front door on Halloween night, greeting the trick-or-treaters. I haven't been in the mood to decorate as much as I usually do for Halloween. I hope to finish up the decorating that I DO want to do, tomorrow.
Well, that is all from my studio today. I have already been at elementary school, substitute teaching this morning. It is raining out and is supposed to keep raining all day. I think I will stay indoors and enjoy MORE fabric therapy!


LATER THAT EVENING:
Ack!!! I am stuck. I don't know if I am making the right choice to add a flower in the center of each side or if I should break apart the border and have two smaller elements in there to make up the difference????

I have these two photo-shopped with mock ups of what I might do with them. The circle would be a pinkish flower. The exclamation points are really single blades. I either have to add a 6" block in the middle or two 3" blocks on either side. Decisions, decisions!!!

EVEN LATER THAT SAME EVENING:
Gosh, I feel like I am writing a cheap murder mystery novel tonight!!! After much thought and more deliberation, I think I am going to go with this layout:

I took some spare strips of black and put that up on the design wall. Then I laid out the blocks more accurately. NOW I think instead of having a six inch block to play with, I only have five inches. (not counting seam allowances)
SOOOOOOOO, I am going to just put equal sized strips of white in between the fans and space them about like what they look like above in the photo from my design wall. I can add embellishments later if I want, OR I can use the extra white space to maybe show off some fancy quilting when I get that far.

I am now pooped! I think I will go to bed so I am quite rested and can work this out, once and for all, tomorrow! I also am almost done with the "D" for dragon block in the U is for Unicorn quilt. I get bored easily and tend to get side tracked. :)

Did I do That???

On Monday I went the Quest Quilt Guild here in North Little Rock, AR. I met Linda Poole for the first time. I have known her forever but we've never met in person. She gave a nice presentation and her trunk show was soooooo neat! I loved seeing the other Fairy Quilts.

I didn't realize how busy I've been until I went to load all the photos today! I have been playing with the layout of the fan blades for the House Medallion quilt:
Here is a stack of these fan blocks, ready for the fan blades to be sewn together. There are 28 blocks/fans to be made. I need to finish the Dragon Quilt so I can use the Juki for piecing these together.

Next to the Pfaff are the last two alphabet blocks for the U is for Unicorn quilt, waiting to be done. Then there are several filler blocks and the applique work for the border blocks left. I ordered more red material today, to make sashing for these blocks too.
The Altoids box in the photo has a magnetic business card in it. I put pins in there and the magnet holds them in place better than a pin cushion, when working in the family room with the cat's 'helping' me. :)

I have the sky done on the Dragon Quilt. The clouds puffed up so nicely!


I have almost got the landscaping quilted on it now. There is sits next to the Juki, waiting for me to finish it today.
Finally my Post Spooky for today is the mess on the dining room table. Those are all the Halloween decorations that I need to put up this weekend. Of course I will finish quilting that Dragon Quilt first!

I also cleaned up my cutting table and put stuff away. I can't believe I let it get so messy. No, wait, I CAN believe it! After all, I AM a quilter. lol The hexagon quilt top is so very close to being done. Today I ordered the batting and backing for it. I will be quilting it by hand. I hope to finish it sometime next year. Hubby asked me to not set up the frame for hand quilting until after the holidays. I would have to agree. A king size quilt on a hand quilting frame WOULD take up a LOT of room!

Hope everyone is having a great weekend. We have sunshine and hubby will be planting the fifty iris bulbs today, that we got from our neighbor. Toodle-lou!

Slave Driver

Lady Lego hasn't been around much. She must have been off on some exotic trip to some far away land. She showed up this morning though, here in the studio! She glared at me until I turned on the Juki and did some quilting. She is my Post Spooky for today too. Trust me, she can be quite scary!!!

Using a variegated blue thread, I have been working on the dragon's face:

I did the boy's shirt in gold thread and his hair in a brown variegated thread. If you click on the photo you can see detailing in a bigger photo:

The pants have red thread work:

I tried to quilt this in a manner to use the direction of the thread to enhance this project. I don't mean to sound full of myself, but I am quite pleased with how this piece is coming together! :)

I still have the belt to do. as well as the darker parts of the dragon's face.

I had best get back to it. Lady Lego can be quite a slave driver when she is in one of her moods!

I AM getting things done! (well almost done!)

The dragon wall hanging is pinned and ready for quilting!

I almost have the ice castle done for the U is for Unicorn quilt:

I hope to have this block done tomorrow. The next two blocks are ready to sew down too.

One is a dragon and one is a griffin.

Some of this and some of that

I am finishing up some detailing on the big dragon quilt.

I have one more step to go on his eyes before I will call them done.

 BOO!!!

I have the first two "Inchies" ornaments done. I am not totally thrilled about them though.

I might make more for the swap if I can't be happy with these two.

I also pulled some fabric for the next quilt:

 

 There are three fabrics here. Usually I would say to use the dark fabric as the sashing. I am thinking of using the lighter green though. The print is a big print of Hoffman Challenge fabric from 2008 I think. I only recently came across a pattern that gave me an idea on how to use this up!

Give a dragon a hug!

All the hand applique work is now done. Next will be some thread painting to embellish some of the background and facial features of the dragon. Then I will be ready to quilt it!

I see you!

I have hand appliqued the head and those face wingy things so far. Next comes the V on his head and the eyes.

FINALLY I am working on the U is for Unicorn quilt again. I finished up the letter "M" today.

OH NO!!!! THE DRAGON ATE HALF THE LITTLE BOY!!!!

Actually I took a progress photo after stitching down the eyes and nostrils. Those are the pants for the boy, obviously! Now on to his shirt and head. This little gem is coming right along! I think it measures about 45 inches square. I am going to play with those eyes a bit more too. I think the pupils need to be fatter.

Dragon Along

I worked on the dragon wall hanging yesterday. I cut out all the pieces for the dragon embellishments and have started sewing them on. The photo shows the pieces cut out and just sitting on the design wall. I hadn't sewn anything down on it yet. I am doing hand applique work on it now.

A little progress

I have the raw cutouts for the boy hugging his dragon. Next I need to flesh out the dragon's face and perhaps add a little detail to it. Then all gets appliqued down. I haven't decided if I will do needle turning by hand or just turn and machine stitch. Maybe I will do both! Satin stitching on this quilt just would not give the look I want for this project.

The dragon's head and boy are just pinned in place and have seam allowances included. He won't be quite so chubby when completed. :)

Here are two shots of Tom's "Tom N Jerry" quilt. It washed up so nice! I used bamboo batting in it. I like the bamboo batting. If you use it though, remember it shrinks up a tad more I think, than all cotton batting. It is so soft though!!!

Don't look at the burnt orange carpeting on his floor. 90% of this house has that carpeting in it. We think it is about 20-30 years old. We plan to eventually replace it all with laminate flooring. It is U-G-L-Y!!!
I dug out my blocks and patterns for the U is for Unicorn quilt. I am thinking/hoping to start working on it again too. Fabric therapy is still the best therapy of all!!!

Dragon Shots

I FINALLY have gone back to work on the Dragon quilt. I have had this background done for over two years now! Today I cut out the face and am auditioning it on the background:

Next I have the boy drawn on freezer paper. (I started the dragon this way too)

I trimmed away a little bit of the freezer paper to see if I have the proportions to my liking. I do. :)

You can see my inspiration photos on the side. They are dragon shots from a new TV show called "Merlin" on NBC. I am also thinking about putting in a fantasy building on one side. It will be a long time before I put the figures down permanently on this background! At least it has finally progressed!