Prismata

 My eldest daughter drew an incredible water dragon when she was in high school.  

At the time I told her that someday I would make him into a quilt for her. 

My skill level was not where I felt comfortable at that time.

I had just started quilting.

This is the original I was working from.

Over time I picked away at the project.

Always in between other things and with zero regularity.

I took it to a retreat a LONG time ago and the people there sort of made fun of the project.

I shoved it in a bag and it was literally YEARS before I took it out again.

I had taken the drawing and enlarged it.

(bite marks are from Finny)

I numbered all the areas on the drawing.

I traced all the pieced on to fusible.

I had chosen the fabrics and fused the pieces.

I brought everything with me to the Reject's Retreat.

I worked really hard on getting started on him.

His name is Prismata.

He is a rainbow, water dragon.

I managed to get him all fused to the background. 

Then I brought him home.

Afraid once again to go any further.

I finally took him out and brought him to my local LQS to ask about interfacing and thread.

They had excellent suggestions.

I bought the sharps sewing machine needles.

I bought 100 weight thread to stitch around him.

I used tear away fusible on the back of the piece.

I stitched all around him and he was amazing.

BUT, he needed amazing quilting.

So he flew on a plane to Washington to Quilting is My Bliss.

Let me tell you, he turned out better than I could have imagined!!!

This is the backing I chose.  I even put a hanging sleeve on it!

Let me tell you, my daughter was so excited to finally have him in her hands!

I gifted it to her on her birthday too.

So now you think this is the end, right?

Well you would be wrong.

If you noticed in the original drawing, he has rainbow colors and bubbles coming off him.

I was nervous to do this on the quilt.

My idea was to possibly use Intense pencils to create the rainbow in the water.

I also considered using hot fix crystals for the bubbles.

Since BOTH are things I couldn't remove, I wanted to see what she thought.

Of course she loved BOTH of those things.

YIKES!

I have not picked him back up to finish, yet.

I need to quilt up a sample to practice with the pencils.

You can color with them and then use water over the top to blend them into the fabric.

I had placed some crystals over the quilted bubbles just to see what how it looked before I even made this as a suggestion.

I remembered to take a picture of those so here is what I put in place, it was not all, as I would fill all the bubbles but I just wanted to see if I even liked it.

She assured me I could not make it too "rainbowy".

I sure hope she's right!

She seems to be the child I make the most complex quilts for.

(Remember her Hallowedding quilt??)

So Prismata is with me for just a little bit longer.

Until I become brave enough to use the colored pencils and put in his bubbles.

He is already an very handsome boy.

I'd love to hear what you think of him.

I think he is gorgeous!

More to come.

~XOP~