Tips on cutting and making your dragon's head section
Welcome to WEEK 2 of our Dragon Dreams quilt-along! Our adventure team as grown to over 2000 quilters, woohoo!
After last week's preparation, I am so excited that we are going to start working on our little dragons this week. Please watch my video below for this week's tips. I am covering the following topics:
- Getting familiar with the Dragon Dreams pattern
- My tips for cutting all your pieces
- Piecing the head section
- Adding the eye detail
Mentioned in the video:
Blog post: What skills do you need to sew a Dragon Dreams quilt?
à Click on the photo
Some additional tips for WEEK 2
Decrease your stitch length!
Especially while sewing your smaller units that make up your dragon's face and claws, a smaller stitch length can help with accuracy and more stable seams. I typically have mine set to 1.8.
Pins are your friends!
I admit, I may not have used pins to sew my small stitch-and-flip units around my dragon's face (I find the small squares "adhere" quite well to the larger fabric piece underneath). But as your units grow, using pins will help you line up your seams. I like to use relatively small/thin pins (I believe mine are Clover glass head pins, size 30), at pin at least the start and end of my seams.
Test your fusible interfacing on scraps first!
Knowing your iron's best heat settings is essential while using fusible interfacing. For example, I set my iron to "max" when using Steam-A-Seam-2, but have to decrease to "medium" for Pellon 906F (otherwise it shrivels like shrink wrap). Always perform a test run with scraps before working on your real quilt!
If you are making a scrappy dragon...
I have seen several gorgeous examples of scrappy dragons. Since you won't be able to use the cutting charts, the process can be a bit tedious though. To set you up for success, here are a few tips:
- When cutting from scraps, start off with your largest pieces, and check each cut piece off in your cutting charts or overview table.
- If you are using a mix of various prints, be sure colours 1-5 are different enough from each other, so your dragon's features stand out clearly.
- Consider piecing some scraps together before sub-cutting larger pieces. This will emphasize the scappy character, and allow you to use smaller scraps as well.
That's it for WEEK 1 – happy cutting and have fun making your dragon's head section! 🐲
I can’t seem to find the block patterns. Please help.
Your written instructions are fabulous and so easy to follow. I’m watching your videos for tips. So far everything is spot on! Thank you.
Loving your tips and videos! I’ve made 1 of your dragons and am following as a watcher this time…love seeing the pics of others posted so far for color inspiration. Will your videos/photos be available in the future??