Trekkies Need Quilts Too

While I was out at Craft Warehouse just yutzing around, I found some Star Trek fabric, and I thought I'd buy some to stash away for John.  Now, I'm going to preface this by saying I am not a big Trekkie.  I haven't watched Star Trek habitually since I was 7, and other than that I've just seen the last couple movies that have come out. Anyway, this fabric I guess shows the Shatner era Enterprise flying through space. 

 Somewhere someone on that fabric is overacting.

I got only a yard of it, thinking maybe John would want a quick and easy pillowcase to surprise him when he got back from the Douglas Complex.  Because I get too stoked about it when I make stuff for people, I told him about the fabric I found and asked him what he wanted from it.  Of course, he didn't want a pillowcase, he wanted a full on quilt. 

Lucky for him and unfortunately for me, he is one of the very few people I cannot say "no" to.  So, a Star Trek quilt it is.

The problem was, I only got a single yard of  a very directional print.  Sure, in space there is no up and down really, but uh, I think he would notice if there were Enterprises flying upside down. So, I decided to not cut it up and use it as one would a panel.  I know John would want this to be at least a lap size quilt to use while he's manning it up playing Call of Duty, so I had to make it bigger...which also means I made it simple because math and I? No.

While I am not a huge Trekkie, I do understand the concept of the shirts.  I knew of three shirts - red (you die), blue (spock) and yellow (Kirk) from the original series, but I needed a fourth color.  Thank God my family is family full of nerd because Mom pointed out that Kirk had a green shirt too. I'd hate to upset the Trekkies by improvising with a color not in the show.

Pretty stylin' there, Captain...

So. Four sides to a quilt, 4 shirts...I can make that work.  So I decide to put 4 insignia blocks in the quilt, one on each side and one in each shirt color. I looked up the original insignia and make my own applique. Easy peasy.

It needed borders around the insignias, and John said he wanted space fabric, but nothing too campy.  (Nothing campy?  Isn't the original Star Trek pretty campy anyway? C'mooooon man!) I needed way more yardage than I thought so of course the perfect space fabric I had in my stash was short by half a yard.  Thank God there's no quilt police to arrest me for mixing cotton and flannel because that's exactly what I had to do.  I used a space print flannel that looked reasonably realistic and it turned out pretty nicely. 

Oooh. Ahhh.  (He better say)


It is simple but I know he'll like it.  It turned out a decent size too, about 70" x 70". All that is left to do now is pick a backing and get it quilted!

A Color Theory Quilt: There's a Bull in the China Shop

Let's get one thing straight.  I am not fond of blue and white fabrics...you know, the ones that look like someone's nice china?  I don't think they're ugly per-say, but let's just say those fancy pantsy florals just aren't my gig.  I can appreciate that they're pretty, but to me they're just flat and boring.  Every quilt I've seen with those prints as the focus have been very monochromatic, very elegant, very tame.  But recently, I learned they don't have to be tame or boring.

There was a blue and white line that came into the shop, and when I saw it, I believe my words were something like "bleeeh."  Articulate, I know.  I didn't think much of it beyond that.  But when mom was having me edit the Newsletter, when she was discussing those pieces, she mentioned turning it on it's ear and pairing it with magenta, lime or orange to give it a little kick. Magenta and lime would look nice, but orange? Fine, Mom, you got me.  I was interested.  So I tottered into the batik room, grabbed a bright coral orange and grabbed one of the new blue and whites and...well...the rest is history.

If you look at your handy dandy color wheel (or, if you're just really into color theory) you know that blue and orange are opposites on the color wheel - complementary colors. That means that they're going to amplify each other, giving you the makings for a bright composition.  This quilt exemplifies how complementary colors play with one another, and how color placement effects the way the eye percieves pattern.

Here is a smattering of the blocks.  Each has a blue half, and an orange half. The middle block is the one that inspired the rest of the quilt. LOVE that combination.

Here are 2 examples of how complementary colors change each other depending on where you place them.  This quilt has alternating, concentric diamonds.  Look what happens if you start with an orange diamond in the center (left).  The blue diamond almost gets lost on the orange background.  Orange becomes the dominant player, and while I much prefer orange to blue, this looks chaotic to me.  To my eye, it's difficult to focus on the pattern because each fabric is screaming for attention - this is due to orange being a highly reflective color, and the eye has natural difficulty staying focused on reflective colors because they force the eye to move.









Yet, when you start with blue in the center (right), the orange diamond appears to float on a sea of blue.  It's a little calmer for the eye to focus on, because the blue becomes the dominant color.  It isn't as reflective as the orange, and this allows the fabrics to play a little more harmoniously rather than and each of the fabrics competing with each other.

Here is the finished product (right). Well, the quilt top anyway.  Once I got it all together, the blue became the dominant force and the orange is just that kick f color that the blue and white desperately needs.  I love the way the batiks and blended oranges (and magenta) pop in contrast to the extremely busy patterns in the blue and white fabrics.  I just gave it away for Frances to quilt today.  We picked out a really fantastic pattern and some gorgeous thread...I cannot wait to get this puppy finished and hung up!

I Love the Holidays...but Thank God it's Over.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know...captain diligent blogger is at it again.

Anyway...Christmas.  I know I say this every year, but man...never again!  This year, with the exception of my boyfriend (for whom I bought a Playstation 3, and who has several quilts already) and my aunt who requested an ornament exchange, everyone got made something sewn.  I made more wall hangings, table runners and tablet cases than you can shake a stick at, and yes, I even quilted (and bound) them myself.  I have a wicked callus on my right middle finger...from binding, not from road rage, I swear.

And the thing is...I have next to no pictures to prove it!  Damn the bad luck, I had to do a factory reset on my phone and because I am techostupid, I managed to lose a good chunk of my pictures between the phone and Picasa...who the heck knows where they are in cyberspace now.  I guess it's a good thing I don't have naughty pictures on my phone, huh?

Here's the few that I DO have...

 <-- A wall hanging for my grandmother, who loves elephants.  She also has a fondness for the colors of 30s prints.  The pattern is from a Modern Quilt Block book, but without the embroidery.  I drew out an elephant and hand embroidered it in the center for her.  I hate hand work, but love my grandma, so I
did it.

 My cousin Sam is a big Doctor Who fan...and since I didn't have the cash to get him some Doctor Who thing, I made him one.  For this I printed out a picture of the Tardis, used spray adhesive to affix it to the fabric, and stitched over it in varigated thread. Yep, I'm a tracer! But it turned out really well and he loved it.  I echo quilted around it in black. Yeah...and my toes are there for size comparison

 My uncle Tom (Sam's dad) is also a huge Doctor Who fan, which is a large part of why Sam is a fan.  There's an episode where there are these weeping angel aliens who are going around and killing people (I'm simplifying it a LOT, go watch the episode if you want the real scoop), and they are super creepy.  He'd mentioned getting a weeping angel christmas tree topper, and so I decided to make him a weeping angel wallhanging.  I took an open domain paper piece pattern for the Doctor Who weeping angel, and had it blown up by 250%.  Even at that size, some of the pieces were stupidly small.  But I am really proud of how it turned out, no matter how teeny those pieces were...I'd hate to have done this as a 12" block like the pattern was designed for.  Yeesh.

 Dad of course is a lifelong gearhead, so of course he had to have his cars and bikes.  He loved it, and asked why I chose to fussy cut the car I did.  I had fussy cut the yellow car because I needed to pull out some more yellow...I really had no reason for it.  As awesome coincidence would have it, that is his favorite year model of that car, and has had his eye on one.  Whelp...let's just say I totally knew that and picked it for that reason...not because it was a yellow car.  Yep.

 And for my friend Isabelle, I stitched her up this while I was watching the movie Insidious (you know, a classic Christmas movie...ha).  She has a lot of stress with work and school, and when I saw this is my "Subversive Cross Stitch" book, I knew it was perfect for her.  Besides, everyone needs this reminder once in a while...whether you enjoy the language or not.  I tossed it in a neat frame I found at Goodwill and voila...foul mouth cross stitch for a foul mouthed girl (she's not too bad...I'm worse, lol)











I made several more things but yeah...the evidence is lost.  I need to try and get more pictures of them to repost someday but you know...we'll see :-)

Cabins in the Stars

Here is one of those current projects I mentioned a couple posts ago. This one is called Cabins in the Stars by Rita Fishel in her book Everyday Quilts. I loved it, and it's outside of the box for me. You know how I feel about piecing...I usually stick with applique when I can help it. But this one, basic though it is, really called to me and I had just the fabrics in mind. Consider of course the fluorescent lighting in my house and the camera phone, but the colors are much more intense than shown. The pink really glows next to the purple and copper metallic.

Rita Fishel's book. It's a really good one, lots of beautiful, versatile patterns.

This is the pattern I'm doing. I know it's hard to see but it's basically Log Cabin blocks and Variable Stars. It goes to show how color placement and block arrangement can make a simple pattern spectacular!

This is that pink/purple (both batiks) combination in the log cabin. Where you see the orchid purple in the pink is actually a really electric pink in an otherwise magenta and rust batik. It really is a stunning piece in person, and I fell in love with it as soon as I saw that shock of glowing pink in there.

Again, it's hard to tell but the center fabric (a batik) isn't that dull. It has the purple, magenta and copper in there so it really pulls everything together. The background is a deep chocolate brown (not a batik) and that copper (Also not a batik, it's Fairy Frost in "Coin" by Michael Miller) really makes the log cabin and center fabric just pop.

As you can see, I did mix batiks and regular quilting cottons together in this quilt. Usually I opt for one or the other, but in this case the subtle prints in the browns and the Fairy frost really offset the batiks well. As far as sewability, they sew together just fine! I have to say, I LOVE the way batiks sew. They press nice and flat, they don't ravel as much...Beauteous.

Since I'm on Mom-mandated day off from work today, I'm going to try and get this done. Oh, and I'm teaching my roomate how to sew too! I'm excited for her to start :D Mo' quilting buddies, mo' betta'!