It just keeps looking better and better!

I absolutely adore what you are doing with that dragon!

I'm planning to do the traponto to the clowds on the left side panel as I did on the ones with the dragon. I still have the Red with the black symbols to put on as well. My wife has a coworker that can explain what they mean, she is getting it all wrote down tonight.
I got a book called "Pieced Curved (so simple) It shows how to put holes in fabric and place another piece in from behind seam it up and it looks like it was put there at the start. I think maybe another dragon might magicly make it in the quilt. I wanted to make the outside Black to look kind of orental, and with the whole thing offset The black and red outer border fives it that look I think The symbols are going to have a shodowbox frame around them then placed in the three left side pieces in a tombulling this way and that way to give it some motion... Any thoughts?

I think it would be impossible for me to cut into that dragon fabric. It is so gorgeous. Goodness. I am so anxious to see how it turns out. I am going to bookmark this so I will see the finished product.
I notice your fabric is in packages. Is that common in your area? Just wondering.

Jo Ann fabrics had it on sale for the holly-days, real cheap, so I got one of each color. I think they call them mini bolts. In three yard pkgs. After I washed them I put them up to the lite and did not see any spots or iregularities in the weave. I was suprised of the quality...

Here is a little more work. I made up these mini quilts with the the squares and plan to put them on about where they are sitting now with a sattin stitch. The translation is I, Good Manner Virtue, Wind. I guess all of them words could relate to the dragon. I put cotton batting behind the black squares so I can outline the red and give it a traponto look to them and some texture as well. At least I hope it will...

Here is the next step. I attached the squares after quilting them with the red stich around them. It gives the edges a little free movement and a look like they are just sitting there.

Wow!!! Fantastic! :thumbup:

Hi EDDIE What's up? I'm glad to see you comment on my work. Everyone has such high reguards for you work.

Oh, right now I'm quilting some old vintage quilt tops for a friend. Just doing some free-motion quilting on them, nothing spectacular. Then I pop in here and see your phenomenal work! Wow!

Thanks for the confendence. This is the first one I trying to do free-motion on. It's scary how the mach can take on a life of it's own and just go where it wants. But this piece is a throcover for our rockn' love seat. I have had it for 24 years and I found two of them setting next to a dumster. This one's under carrege was busted up and the outhe one had paint poured all over it. (I liked to do woodwork before my OA took over my life) So I took apart the bottom of this one to figger out the workings and then put the goog bottom on the good top. Everybody that sits it in loves it. I've had offers to buy it. Just won't sell it. It does need to be redone, One good thing about me making thie for it is I kept adding on till it was big enough. Ha! Ha!

Here is the next step. I have the branches glue sticked down for now. That way I can do all of the shading on them and not have them move to much. I wanted to get the dragon to look like it was in a window, and push it back some in the piece. I am going to add a white border around outside, the same size as the the black, and red. Hopefully to frame the edge of the branch into the quilt. Then the hard part starts doing all of that sewing. But I guess that's why we do it, to do it...

It's absolutely gorgeous!

Started to sew in the tree branch and blossoms. I realized that the more flowers I put on this ,The more I had to sew. But I guess that's what we're here for.
I mean to make all of the cuts of fabric just to sew them back together.
It takes a special person to get the reason in that, right?

I love the material! Can't wait to see the finished project!

stunning

Holy cow this is amazing! Even more so when you have only just started FMQ. Love your fabric choices and love love love what you are doing with it.

On a side note regarding your OA, you should look into apitherapy (bee sting treatment). If you seek out bee keeping clubs in your area you can learn more. Here is a link I found on it http://arthritis.about.com/gi/o.htm?...lltherapy.com/
DH is a beekeeper and members of his group swear by it.

We have some similar interests as well, I too am into bikes love tats but only have two myself. I ride a HD Road King. Have ridden to sturgis twice and loads of places in between.

Since I have to hard a time pulling in the clutch with my left hand. :-( This is the fate of my besstest friend. I will defenitly check into the bee sting thing, after all I can stand a little pokes to the skin... :-)

That, my friend is a crying shame! Have you looked into doing a hydraulic clutch conversion? Don't know if it will help or not. They run around $350. Don't know too much about it either but have heard it makes it much easier to pull in the lever on otherwise troublesome bikes. My Roadking has always had a very easy clutch that takes very little hand strength to pull it in, even with carpal tunnel I am ok with it most of the time. I rode with a guy who had a fatboy that I could not believe how hard that clutch was to pull in.

Here is a (bad pic) of the good times.

I love the quilt! But you already know that :) It's one amazing piece of artwork!

I have this material, but it is in golds, I got it to decorate up the back of my nephew's grad. quilt. I fell in love with it, but there was only half a yard left on the Bolt.
I enlarged the face of it as one of ny quilting motifs. I really like your quilt.
Lucinda

OK I have finished sewing the cherry tree branch. Now I just need to put the white border on it. AND then a backing, I think I'm just going to stich in the ditch for the inner squares. Then put a fancy stitch around the outer three borders. Does anybody have ant ideas fot that?

Just my opinion, for what it's worth...Keep your border simple. You don't want to take away from the lovely flowers.....

One more step finished. The white border, it sets the tree branch into the total picture quite well. I am happy with how it turned out. I realy didn't have any more of an idea than the dragon on the black and gray print. After that I just cut and sewed fabric. Any Ideas on what to use and a design to quilt this. Would be great.
BTW the size of this thing is 72" tall and 87" wide.
Maybe I went a little overboard for the first one,,,,
BUT it's to late now.
The more I look at it..........I can say I realy like it.....
Thanks to all of you that hepled me do this.
I don't think it will be my last.........

Looking good!!! :D:D:D Tossing you a towel to wipe off your brow LOL

On the white border, how about white thread and mimic the appliqued flowers? I was thinking black or red at first, but I think it would take away from the lovely appliqed flowers and be too busy. Or Swirls in white thread that mimics the swirls in the center fabric.

I'll try some on some scraps.
and have a vote.
Great idea amma, thanks.

What color are you going to bind in, black??? That would look great. You're doing awesome!

Wow, wow, wow - what a gorgeous quilt. Amazing work. I love it.

Anytime kiddo!!! :D:D:D

Great dragons, look for books authored by Don Linn. He makes some fantastic quilts with the larger than life prints. Just saw a show of his quilts. It wll blow you away. He is here in Yuba City for a 2 day quilting class this weekend. go on line to www.valeyquiltguild.com to contact him.

Here is the dragon material that I have.

Is that dragon the same scale as mine or bigger?

Same scale. I just had to put it into my scanner to be able to show it to you.

Your work is absolutely stunning....nice balance with the dragon and blossom (dragon being a powerful nature element and the blossom adding a peaceful note). Love it that you put so much research into the meaning of the symbols..I lived in Asia for some years so I have watched this with great interest. How about a Phoenix for a future project?

Here is a better picture of it, that one was cropped to get a quilting motif for my nephews grad quilt.

I guess the program itself cropped it. Let me see if I can get it to show whole area.

here we go

Wow, wow, wow! That's really nice looking! :D As to the quilting in the border, I think I would do a kind of meandering quilting around those flowers to kind of mimic the flowing branches (but not onto the flowers themselves). I think that would help the flowers then standout even more.

Spectacular!

Actually I have a Koi fish planned next. But thanks for the idea, I'll start to hunt down the fabric. Here is some of the fabric pieces I plan to use some how???? With this one I started out with just the fabric and cut and sewed what poped in my head. It's not like when I did tattoos. I needed the immage in my head BEFORE I started. I did do that on myself though. Kind of fun not knowing what you'll end up with, KWIM?

Great looking fabrics. You ought to try to get to a local Wal-Mart and see if you can find a Japanese style print by Cranston Village for their V.I.P. line of fabrics. Below is a pic. I used some of this to make a fabric bowl with, but it looks like it would be good for your koi project as well.