Tag Archives: quilt kit

In the Beginning Dragon Quilt Kit

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I was looking for some dragon fabric to make masks a few weeks ago and discovered this quilt kit and pattern. I found the individual fabrics first, several of which are fabulous. Here’s the quilt kit using all of them. It comes in orange or blue:
In the Beginning Dragon quilt pattern in orange In the Beginning Dragon Quilt in blueHere’s the page about it on the website of the designer and manufacturer, In the Beginning.

The collection includes a large central panel, then a panel with six smaller dragons, a border fabric, and four all-over prints (scales, circles, a Celtic knot and a wonderful mix of circles and dragons). You can see the individual fabrics in blue on the designers’ site, right here. The quilt requires all of the fabrics in the collection. I think it might include some solid black, too.

I spent a lot of time looking at this on various sites, trying to decide whether I love it or not. The short answer is that I love the coordinating fabrics but am not so wild about the panels – but then, the panels are kind of the point. The palette reminds me of the original covers for the first two of my Dragonfire novels, Kiss of Fire and Kiss of Fury, which is also part of the appeal. The finished quilt is a big piece – 72″ by 92″.

In the end, I surrendered to temptation. 🙂 Even though the dragons show up better on the orange version, I ordered the blue one. I’m curious to see how the fabric feels on the panels, whether it’s stiff with ink or not. Is there metallic ink on the panels and borders? I’m not entirely sure. It would be lovely to see it in person before deciding, but I didn’t find a local stockist, even if stores were open. It should be comparatively quick to piece – it looks as if all the blocks are squares – but we’ll see. (I’ve already noticed that I prefer how the borders are pieced and the corners mitred on the orange sample, so there’s something to watch.)

I’ll tell you more when the kit arrives, whenever that might be.

Moonglow Quilt – I

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Moonglow Quilt by Jinny BeyerMoonglow is a quilt designed by Jinny Beyer, using fabrics that she also designed. It was originally made available close to 15 years ago and I’ve always loved it. Last year, I treated myself to a kit, using some birthday money, and this year, I’ve started to cut, piece and sew it.

You can buy a kit from Jinny Beyer Studios, which includes the fabric and pattern, right here.

Mr. Math always laughs when I buy a kit. He builds ship models, so when he buys a kit, he gets little cast cannons and different kinds of wood, etc., as well as the plans. He can spend the better part of a day making sure he has all the bits and ends, and checking that he likes the quality and scale of them. Sometimes he buys different castings. He usually buys different (better) flags. He always looks at online galleries of other people building the kit, to get their tips and tricks. It’s very complicated and it can take weeks for him to get to the point of being ready to start. In contrast, I got a box of fabric and had a link in my receipt to download the PDF pattern to print it out. I put a new blade in my rotary cutter and was ready to go.

I did cut all of the outside borders first and have set them aside. If you look at the image, you can see that there are alternating blocks in a modified log cabin block – it might be courthouse steps. There are actually two different layouts of them, six of each. They look like this:

Moonglow alternating blocks sewn by Deborah Cooke

I took these pictures outside on a dingy day, which means the colours are fairly accurate but the images look less crisp.

Next I started on the stars. Here are the first two, pieced with their neighboring blocks. The one at the top goes on the right edge in the middle, and the one at the bottom in my picture goes on the left edge of the finished top.

Moonglow blocks 1 and 2 sewn by Deborah Cooke

This is block three, which goes at the top center. I made a mistake in this one and cut the triangles with the right side up instead of the wrong side up, which means mine spins in the opposite direction.

Moonglow block 3 sewn by Deborah Cooke

It’s also not as square as I’d like it to be, but I want to make sure I don’t run out of fabric. If I finish the other blocks and have enough left, I’ll do it again. I’m also changing to using the paper piecing for the blocks – those diagonal seams on the bias are hard to get right.

Next up, star four, which goes at the bottom in the middle. I’m really enjoying the piecing of this quilt, even when it challenges me a bit, and I love the colours. What do you think?