COVINGTON, Ga. — Covington resident Melissa Feuer has again taken scraps of costumes worn during Atlanta’s annual DragonCon and created her third quilt to benefit the science fiction-themed convention’s charity.
This year’s quilt has various shades of bluish-gray with triangle-shaped scraps sewn in with designs depicting the familiar Batman logo, comic book and film cartoon characters, such as Scooby-Do.
It is scheduled to be auctioned Sunday, Sept. 4, between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta, with money raised benefiting DragonCon’s 2022 charity Open Hand Atlanta.
DragonCon is a 36-year-old Labor Day weekend tradition that attracts fans of gaming, animation, cosplay and science fiction-based fantasy programming. It is expected to bring more than 60,000 participants to a series of downtown Atlanta hotels and convention spaces.
Cosplay — dressing up as a TV or movie character — is a popular part of DragonCon. Many participants choose to create their own unique and colorful costumes.
When cloth is left over from the construction and sewing process, convention costumers send Feuer some scraps to create unique quilts she sends to convention organizers to auction off.
DragonCon attendees also donate the six-inch fabric squares from their collections of sci-fi-themed items, she said.
“I am so thankful for all the DragonCon cosplayers who donated their scraps so that I might make a quilt to auction for the charity auction. They are an amazing group of creative folks,” she said.
Feuer is a longtime Atlanta-area freelance graphic designer who moved from Atlanta to Covington with her husband after his employment as an engineer with a Newton County industry.
She said she has attended and participated in past conventions, while her husband is a musician who performs with the Atlanta Swing Orchestra that often performs at the event.
Feuer eventually met and stayed in touch with a number of DragonCon costumed participants in recent years on social media. They agreed to send scraps or other cloth associated with their costumes beginning in 2019.
Her 2019 quilt was large enough for a queen-sized bed and was auctioned to benefit the American Heart Association, she said.
She did not sew a quilt for the virtual-only event in 2020, but did so the past two years as DragonCon returned to being an in-person convention.
Other items sold at past charity auctions have included everything from comic books and artwork to signed photos and movie props.
This year’s charity, Open Hand Atlanta, is one of the largest community-based providers of home-delivered meals and nutrition services in the U.S. It delivers meals to homebound elderly residents and the disabled in the Atlanta area.
For more information about the auction and DragonCon, visit DragonCon.org.
