I don’t have any knitting to show you this week, although I’m making good progress on two projects. I finished the body on my Spector pullover and tried it on – it fits! That was exciting. Now I’m charging down the first sleeve. The other project I’m trying to finish was stranded on Sleeve Island for a long time. It’s my Audrey cardigan, which had to go into time-out when I realized the sleeves were far too wide and had to be frogged. One sleeve is done and I’m making good progress on the second. I’ll show you both sweaters when they’re done.

In the meantime, I saw some quilting fabric that I just had to buy – because, well, dragons. It’s from Studio E and the collection is called Rainbow Dragons. At right are the dragon panels.

There are two free PDF pattern downloads available using the prints in the collection – you can see them here – but I’d rather make up my own.

This is the alphabet panel I bought, which is just plain fun:

There are things I love about these panels – yes, dragons! – and things I discovered in cutting that add to the challenge of it all. The letters aren’t all the same size, which makes sense since they have different shapes. The bigger issue is that there isn’t the same amount of space between them – you can’t cut them apart so each letter has 1/2″ all around. Look at C and D, for example. They look spaced out but there isn’t even 1/4″ between the tip of the flourish on the C and the end of the serif on the D. There are also shaded images of dragons in the background – they’re more obvious in this photo than in real life – so adding a little piece of background to square up the letter will always show. Hmm. The designer must not have intended that the letters be cut apart, but that’s what quilters do!

As much as I love the side banner, I can’t figure out how to use it. There are exactly two repeats with no space between them for a seam allowance and no seam allowance at either end. Plus there are two different background gradations on each side, so you can’t piece one good one out of each pair. It’s not available as separate yardage either, which is a shame because it would make a rocking border. Hmm. I don’t actually know what to do with the border hexagons on the other dragon panel either. Inspiration may strike as I work.

The first solution was obviously to dip into the stash and I had a good time with that. I do have a rainbow selvedge-to-selvedge gradation in my stash that goes perfectly with these prints, so that’s been pulled out. I also tugged out a number of orange and yellow prints, including one with flames. (I default to turquoise, purple and pink, so am trying to mix it up a bit.) I’d already bought these flying dragons from the same line to make a brighter dragon tote bag. They’ll going into this quilt instead.

I don’t have a design wall, so there’s fabric all over the floor. My dog likes to walk across it, or even sleep on it, just adding to the challenge of it all. 🙂 I’m quite excited about this project and will show you my results!