I have been a reader of fantasy fiction since I was about nine or ten years old. I read the Lord of the Rings trilogy for the first time when I was in middle school (and re-read it every couple of years). The painting above depicts the dragon Smaug from The Hobbit, lying on his pile of treasure. If you look very carefully at the lower right corner, you might see Bilbo Baggins, THE hobbit, bowing to the dragon. This particular illustration was drawn by Tolkien himself (author of these books).
What does this relate to in my life (other than my niche reading preferences:)? Several months ago a friend (whose name I have forgotten in the interim) gave me three pieces of silk fabric - weaving samples that were probably rep color/order charts. Luscious, elaborate silks. They've been sitting beside my sewing machine, attracting my eye ever since. Recently I've been sewing on Bonnie Hunter's mystery project Chilhowie pretty much exclusively ... and, even though I truly love the fabrics I've chosen and am plugging away with the effort, I was getting bogged down in the minutiae of piecing the block units.
Suddenly last weekend I decided to step aside and follow that silk "squirrel" temptation for a few days. :) When I looked at my fabrics, I 'saw' dragon bellies embedded with gems and jewels from sleeping on their treasure piles. :) The project has veered away from my original vision, but that's ok with me - I might even try for a series on this topic and start a new one. :)
Here is what I originally created:
I pictured these quarter-square log cabin blocks as dragon scales - set on point and overlapping like belly scales. You might have to click and embiggen the photo to see the luscious sheen and print pattern of these silks. When I finished piecing the block units, I set them together thinking I would turn the whole thing on point as if I were looking at the scales face-on. The project fought with me, though, and this is what I ended up making:
I could not find a/any fabric(s) in my immediate stash that would suit as the setting-on-point print for the central nine block array ... and so cut up the striped silk print into a piano-key style border. I am thinking to hand quilt this with big stitch embroidery in, possibly, black or some other intense neutral color. To be determined. :)
I went back to work on the BH project today. Faithful Circle quilters have arranged a Friday afternoon zoom for us to sew together on this project. Today I did not feel up to going out (my stomach was grumpy) so I joined the group from home with my sewing instead of going to Barbara's house as is my usual wont.
I need to rummage through my stash and find something nice for the back of this piece (it's about 26" square) so I can sandwich it. I look forward to doing the hand quilting on it. :)
The weather has been mild temperature-wise but very windy today. Gray the past couple of days. It was sunny on Wednesday - I took my Condo Crew out grocery shopping all afternoon and was grateful we did not have to deal with rain while we were out!
:) Linda
PS I forgot to note that Skip and I went to the lab on Tuesday afternoon for Covid tests. We both tested negative. Thank you, Science!
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