Happy Lunar New Year!

About this image
Dragon paper-cut
From Paper-cuts of Yangzhou, China 中國揚州剪紙. Gift of Ann Tompkins and Lincoln Cushing to the C.V.Starr East Asian Library & Chang-Lin Teen Center for East Asian Studies at U.C. Berkeley This is the Year of the Wood Dragon, that's me, I'm a wood dragon. And if you were born in a year ending in 4 or 5 then you are too. That means it's really our year!

Happy Lunar New Year! It's the year of the dragon, the wood dragon in particular. And I just happen to be one. You are also a wood dragon if you were born in 1964 or early 1965. 

Since it seems to line up with "being My Year", I decided to commemorate it with making myself a dragon from a paper pieced pattern from Happy Sew Lucky. I really love her patterns, they always turn out so well.

 

I picked out a selection of fabrics 

and mapped them out to all of the many many pieces on the helpful chart provided with the pattern. 

I got out my paper piecing set of tools, my small cutting mat that can fit right next to my machine, a smaller rotary cutter than I usually use, a shortl add-a-quarter ruler, a regular square ruler and a seam roller. And the first section (the eye!)  is done, just like that.

Am I turning into someone who likes paper piecing now? Maybe...it could be turning out that way after sewing all those paper pieced blocks (and minis) for the Trinket quilt. But ask me when I'm done with this project.