My second entry into the Blogger’s Quilt Festival at Amy’s Creative Side is “The Inheritance Cycle” AKA “The Dragon Quilt of Doomity-Doom-Doom-Doom.” This year there is a new category for Original Designs, and this quilt seemed like the best fit for that category!
This quilt was a gift for my niece last Christmas. She requested a dragon quilt in yellows, greens and blues – the colors of the good dragons in The Inheritance Cycle books (the Eragon series). Oh and, she wanted me to incorporate some sketches of baby dragons I had made for her at some point. Sure. No problem!
I spent a great deal of time procrastinating on this quilt (which is how it started earning its doom monicker) mostly because I had no clue how to accomplish what I wanted to do. Well, not entirely true. I had an idea of how to do it, and zero of the skills required to do so.
Finally after battling with some inner doubts, I decided to just start practicing until I could get the skills I needed to create the quilt I actually wanted to make. I started by sketching dragons over and over, until I could figure out how to create dragon poses and faces that I liked.
Then I moved on to learning thread sketching, which was a trial on its own since I’d had very little experience FMQing. I had a few technical issues along the way, but managed to work my way through them.
And then of course there was the whole issue of figuring out how to build a quilt around my dragon blocks because they were a) about half the size I originally planned them to be and b) the original design was fairly vague to begin with.
In the end, I really loved the way the quilt turned out, and more importantly, so did my niece! She didn’t like my name for the quilt, and said she would call it The Inheritance Cycle Quilt. But it’s pretty much always going to be The Dragon Quilt of Doomity-Doom-Doom-Doom to me.
If you’d like to read more about the quilt along with links through the whole design saga, you can find them on my previous post here.
49 thoughts on “Blogger’s Quilt Festival – Original Design”
Nice entry! Great colors and dragons.
Thanks Vera! There are so many gorgeous quilts in the festival this year!
i loved it at its big reveal and I still love it now, its such a great quilt, lots of interesting elements to it, and such a fantastic gift.
Thanks Sarah! It’s funny how much trouble this quilt gave me and yet how much I like it now at the end! I guess I feel fortunate. It doesn’t always come out that way! :O
doesn’t get any more original than this!
Thanks, Charlotte! 😀 <3
I’ve never seen dargons with such sweet faces before 🙂 Any tips and tricks on stitch sketching greatly appreciated! Were there any tutorials that helped you?
Thanks so much! I spent the most time figuring out the faces of those dragons!
I couldn’t find any tutorials, so I just put black thread in my machine, put it in FMQ mode and just tried it a bunch on scraps of stabilized fabric. 🙂 I found that for me, I liked to draw the design in pencil first, and then stitch over that. I know some people just go for it, but I’m not comfortable enough with FMQ for that to be very viable. 🙂 Find some fabric you don’t really care about and practice it, figure out what was hard and try to figure out a way to make it easier and keep practicing. 🙂 Oh, and realize that mistakes in the lines are part of what gives it the look you’re going for. I did pull some mistakes, but most I left.
I’d be happy to help you out if you have more questions!
dargons?? lol dragons!
The dragon quilt of doomity doom doom doom is my all time favorite quilt. ALL TIME!!!!!!!!!! I love, love, love, love, love, love, love this quilt. And if you don’t win EVERY prize, I’ll be blustering about and screaming that you’ve been robbed!!
Ok, I’ll calm down. But honestly, other than the bit at the end there, it’s all true. This is such an epic quilt and when people tell me I have a nana hobby, I show them this and walk away. This is still my favourite quilt, and I love, love (love, love, love) it.
E xx
Thanks SO much, Erin!! It’s funny, I put so much time and effort into this quilt that I worried I only liked it because of that. It’s so nice to see comments like yours! Also I’m cracking up about the nana comment. I imagine a mic drop at the end, too. *boom*! 😉
Thanks for all your support, you were one of the people who really helped me get through my creative crises!
I love what Erin said!! I love this quilt and she is so right … this is NOT a nana hobby … at least not when you get involved. lol
Thanks Pat! You two are totally cracking me up with your nana hobby comments! Too funny! 😀
hahaha! Love your name for it, but it’s anything but a quilt of doom! It’s gorgeous! No wonder your niece loved it 🙂
Thanks so much! By the time I finally actually started working on the quilt, I’d been building it up in my head for a month or so! So it’s perceived difficulty level was somewhere around Mt. Everest, hence the name. hahaha!
Wow!! It’s amazing! You give me hope that I can also attain some sort of level of awesomeness at some point. Great work!!
Thanks so much, Jenn! Looking at the work on your blog (the appliqué rose is insanely good, and the back looked fine to me! And that flying geese quilt is GORGEOUS!) I don’t think you need to worry about attaining any sort of level of awesomeness. You’re already there! 🙂
This is amazing!! I love your appliqué and thread sketching. Those are things I’ve been wanting to try and learn for a long time. So cool to see them put together so well in a beautiful finished quilt.
Thanks, Kristin! 😀 I’d wanted to learn thread sketching for ages, but my FMQ attempts were kind of disastrous (I managed to sew my FMQ foot INTO the quilting. Multiple times. Seriously. No clue.) and so I was afraid to try. This quilt forced me to give it a go and I’m so glad I did! I haven’t done any since then, and I really want to get back and try it with my new machine. 🙂
wasn’t it so lucky your baby dragons turned out half size? This quilt is completely perfect the way it is.
At the time, it was a little soul shattering to find out they were too small. LOL In retrospect, however, the original size of them would have been ridiculously big. 🙂 So I suppose it was lucky, although I definitely didn’t see it that way at the time! Also, thank you for your camaraderie during the creation of this quilt. It meant a lot!
I loved this from start to finish and the end result is really lovely. Tell you niece I’m jealous, I’d love that quilt myself!
Thanks Ruth! 😀 And thanks for being on the journey of its creation! I really want to make another one of these to keep, but am a little intimidated by how rough it was the first time!
And, now, you can call it “Done”. ;}
HAHHAHAHAHHAhaha OMG I love that. Yes. Yes I can. 😀
Wow! I have drooled over this quilt from the beginning! I am in love with everything about this quilt, and your talent astounds me. I see no room for self doubt here. I am glad that you pushed through it. This is beautiful!
Thanks so much, Yvonne! 😀 It’s funny you mention self-doubt. When it came time to pick a quilt to enter into the festival, I thought of this quilt but then thought “maybe I just like this quilt because it was so hard to make? What if it’s not actually that good?” Then I told myself it didn’t really matter why I liked it or whether other people did or not and moved on with my life, but trust me, the self-doubt? Still there! lol So thank you so much for the vote of confidence, it really does mean a lot. 🙂
I’ve loved this since you first showed it!
Thanks Sarah! I think it’s the quilt I’m most proud of so far, just from a “pushing way past my comfort zone” perspective. 🙂
Uhm, dragons? Yes, please!!
Great work!
Thank you! I’m a huge fan of dragons, so it was a lot of fun to work on this one! (When I wasn’t gnashing my teeth and ripping my hair out, anyway. LOL)
This is still a favourite of mine too! I especially liked the documented creative journey you took. This is truly an original and you have my vote!
Thanks so much, Molli! 😀 I was re-reading the posts the other night to remind myself what to write about this quilt, and I’d already forgotten a lot of the trials and tribulations. At the time they seemed SO HUGE and now it’s like “oh yah, that thing.” lol
I have always loved this quilt!! Who wouldn’t?! It’s brilliant 🙂
-Soma
Thanks Soma! 😀 It’s weird, but I don’t think I’ve done anything as creative since the completion of this quilt. Maybe I should revisit the thread sketching thing and see where it takes me. 🙂
Still one of my favorite quilts ever. : )
Thanks Am! Am I allowed to say it’s one of my favorites, too? >_> Although probably for completely different reasons. 🙂 It represents the conquering of a lot of demons for me. 🙂
I love this quilt, it is perfect for the festival!
Thank you! It’s the first year where I feel like I have something I really love to show in the quilt festival. 🙂
Anne you know I LOOOOOOVVVE this quilt of yours. The dragons are awesome and I love the fabrics and colours that you used, but more than that I love the backstory and how you pushed through doubts and difficulties to end up with something you should be really proud of 🙂
Thanks Adrianne! 😀 I feel like I’ve taken a bit of the easy road since this quilt’s creation, and maybe it’s time to do something a bit harder again. 🙂 Like trying to re-learn thread sketching on the Juki. It SHOULD be easier, but it’s new! and different! and scary! LOL
Watching you create this quilt was pretty much what made me fall in love with you 🙂
EEEeee <3 <3 <3 Thank you Leigh Anne! You are so sweet! And you totally just made my day. 😀
It’s nice to see Doomity Doom Doom again.
Thank you! I wonder if my niece would let me steal it long enough to enter it in a show or two. My guess is probably not.
Thread sketching… AWESOME. What an incredible heirloom gift for your niece! I bet she’ll treasure it forever. I’ve been thinking lately a lot about ‘scary work’. It’s so easy to stay within the comfort zone, but comfort zone doesn’t often lead to new, exciting creative pathways… so cool you wandered into scary territory!
Thanks so much, Julie! Thread sketching is a lot of fun, but it’s definitely not comfort territory yet. 🙂 My niece is a bit young to really grok the amount of work that went into it, but I’m hopeful it will get treated well anyway. 😉 You’re totally right about scary territory vs comfort zone, but I admit it’s really hard to push myself into that scary territory. I have a few things going on that are putting me into the scary territory on their own, and I’m finding it makes me want to creatively play it safe. Like I can only handle so much scary at once. 🙂
Brilliant and such a cool take on dragons – my daughter also likes dragons but i have never thought of attempting something like this! I am very impressed at your dedication to learning the skills to fulfil your vision!!
Thank you so much! 😀 I can be a little stubborn at times, and this was definitely one of those times. lol But I had a definite look I was going for in my head, and I really wanted to get to it. I didn’t quite get there, but it was close enough. 🙂