There Be Dragons and There Be Mermaids - Project Quilting

"There Be Dragons" and "There Be Mermaids," 6" x 6" each, made by Pam Geisel for Project Quilting, Season 11, Challenge 2: Team Colors, Jan. 2020 in Yellow Springs, Ohio

Challenge recap for "Team Colors":

Your project this week needs to be inspired by the official “team colors” of some organization you support.

While it was made clear in the directions that this didn't have to be a "sports team," that was my first thought. And while I'm not a big sports fan, my husband does like baseball, and fortunately baseball is a sport I can tolerate. And perhaps even enjoy. So much so that we do go to a handful of minor league games every year to our hometown team the Dayton Dragons. Their colors are red and orange.

(As a side note, several years ago I did make small quilts of the stadium, both inside and out, and you can see them here.)

So my first interpretation isn't that much of a stretch, since it's a dragon. I was thinking of the quote "There be Dragons" (or "Here be Dragons") which can mean dangerous or unexplored territories. It is supposedly a saying that was on old maps in areas that hadn't yet been explored to warn people away from those places, although there doesn't appear to be any maps that actually say those words.

Realizing that I had some fabric with fictional ocean maps left over from 2013 Project Quilting Bonus Challenge "Tradition Times Three" where we all purchased a specific fat quarter bundle to create a quilt that used a traditional block and use it in at least three sizes. I made "Red Sky at Night" for this project.

While I was thinking about this background fabric and dragons, planning on using the second team color of orange to make the dragon's fire breath, I realized there was something else that could be found in the ocean, which also had green scales and could possibly have orange/red hair so I made a second quilt that featured a mermaid. (I did recently sell the quilt "Mermaid Haiku," which was also a Project Quilting challenge and perhaps I was missing having a mermaid around.) Also neither my dragon or mermaid are too cute be considered dangerous.

I ironed fusible to the back of the mermaid and dragon pieces then fused them to the background fabric. I based the quilt sandwich, quilted down the raw edges, applied fray check to the raw edges, then wrapped the pieces around 6" x 6" canvases.

More about There Be Dragons and There Be Mermaids

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To read more about Project Quilting, go here.

To see other entries for this challenge, visit the Team Colors page.