Somehow, in the moment of weakness or madness or unlimited overpowering parental love, I promised the oldest that I’ll make a dragon quilt for her. I’ve looked through enough quilting books and read enough quilting blogs to be aware of the time commitment and the level of skills required to make one. I’m also painfully aware of my own lack of knowledge and experience. Sewing few squares together and tying the quilt layers instead of tackling hand or machine quilting is as complex as my quilt making got so far.

However I’ve dreamt about making quilts for years. Maybe I should attempt something simple in the interim and yet this is the quilt that I want to make and maybe I can learn as I go along, because having an emotionally strong reason for learning is the best incentive to achieve much more than at first thought possible.

I want this quit to be light in colour – the Girl used to get excited about the snow and the whiteness of the linen. Her nature is gentle and I have visions of her wrapping herself in the warmth and the tranquillity of the quilt when she needs some calm and quite. I don’t want it to be completely white and was thinking of adding blues – like in the chinese pottery (and Russian Gzhel for that matter). I had some old interior design magazines, that I got from op-shop for collaging with kids, and looking through them I realised that I can create a colour board for the quilt to progress with the design.


I went to the Melbourne aquarium on my own to sketch reptiles to get some visual ideas for the central dragon image. The bulky saltwater crocodile won’t work as in inspiration for this dragon. The lizards could, but what really caught my eye were the seahorses and leafy seadragons. I may go ahead with something based on the seadragons and chinese dragons – the girl likes the dragons in the books to be gentle and kind.

All sketches were done in A4 Daler-Rowney Ebony Artist’s sketchbook.