How To Quilt A Dinosaur AND Make It Glow 🦖

I’m a kid at heart, aren’t we all?  So, when I saw some Glow In The Dark Dinosaur fabric at my local quilt shop I took a quick look around to make sure no one was watching; then I sneaked a couple of bolts into the bathroom, closed the door tight, and watched it glow!

Of course, I had to buy some of the fabric and make a quilt.  I have to tell you, though, this is not one of the more beautiful quilts that I’ve ever made.  I probably should have gone with less fabric choices, BUT, and this is a big BUT, it doesn’t matter … because it GLOWS!!!  And believe me, I snuck every last bolt of fabric into that quilt shop bathroom when no one was looking so that I could pick out the ones that glowed the brightest.

Dino Glow Fabric by Benartex

While making the quilt at home I kept taking it into our bathroom to watch its glowing progress.  Hey, don’t judge me … I bet you’d do the same!  I tried to take pictures of it in the dark to show how it glows but all I would get each time was a dark screen on my phone.  Call me frustrated.  So, off I went to the app store because there’s an app for everything, right?  Honestly, I think there IS an app for everything.  The app I found was actually for photographing glowing objects in the dark.  Perfect right?  Except it hadn’t been updated for iOS11 so I settled on a Night Camera app and good ‘ol Photo Shop. 

Glowing Dinosaur!

The quilt itself is an orange peel pattern.  I love making those!  Instead of using the traditional method where you hand appliqué the petals onto the fabric I used a stencil, freezer paper and some fabric glue and had myself some fun putting it all together.  There’s just something about a glue stick that screams … FUN!  OR … maybe, that’s just me 😜 

This stencil is available at plumeasypatterns.com

Then came my favorite part … quilting it on my new longarm!  Since the quilt top colors that I chose don't have the contrast that I like I wanted to try and make the quilted petals pop instead.  To do this, I quilted around the petals and then quilted down the area in the middle of each circle. I also used Quilter’s Dream Puff Batting to poof those little petals up.  I used glowing fabric for the backing and binding and all I have to do now is send it off to the two little boys that I made it for.  I’ll let them test it out in that way that little boys do best ... by making tents, parachutes and playing tug of war. 

I have to say it’s definitely weird when you walk into the room at night because you’re not expecting that GLOW to jump out at you.  It’s like the aLiEnS 👽 have landed or something!

Here it is at night ... GLOWING!

Now I’m back to piecing the quilt that I was working on before I had “dinosaur interruptus”.  This one doesn’t glow but you'll see it in a future blog.  In the meantime, go and pick up some glowing fabric and stitch some love into a little one’s life! 

If you are reading this from a mobile device please switch to the web version to sign up to follow me by clicking on the FOLLOW button in the right panel.