Puff Reborn

Continuing on with tale of the poor Puff quilt - the day I first saw the quilt top, all I knew was that it was a dragon quilt. When I first saw what I was getting myself into, the quilting plan Ifirst came up with was just to do a simple overall swirl pattern on it.  I really was at a bit of a loss as how to quilt this cute Puff dragon without making it look weird. It needed to be quilted 2-4 inches apart, but I knew that with the extra layer of the old quilt inside that tight quilting was out of the question.

Within a few seconds of beginning to quilt it I knew I had to change plans...and needles!  A size 12 was not going to cut it, so up to 14 I went.  I decided to stitch in the ditch around the design and come up with some fillers for the various parts of the dragon.  Then I could do some spirals in the background to fill that in.  I am happy with the resulting quilt!

Excuse the sunbeams - I do think Puff is enjoying them!  I added petals to the flowers, then for Puffs tummy I added upside down  clam-shells and some lines to define the ridges on his back and tail.

I was most worried about the face.  I did a wide echo around the nostrils and defined his snout, then quilted some flame-y eyebrows around his eyes, and pointy scales naturally flowed out from there.

 Here is what it looks like on the back!  That lovely green does a great job of hiding all the thread colors on the back!

 I quilted pointy scales all over his body, even down to his toes!

I finished with spirals in the background using a variegated blue and green thread.  In the end I think he looks really good!  Puff measures about 45 x 55.  He has an original quilt on the inside as well as a lightweight cotton blend batting.  The quilting is done in a variety of threads, including my favorite Aurifil, which I used for the binding.  The binding is machine stitched to the back and top-stitched on  the front. 

I am sure his owner will be so happy that Puff lives on - I enjoyed being part of the process!