Tag Archives: c2020

Memory Quilt 1

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My uncle lost his wife in 2018 and I wanted to honor her with a memory quilt out of her old shirts. My uncle provided a bunch of bright polo shirts and other shirts of hers, which I made into a quilt for him. I wanted to keep it really simple and soft, so I cut out big squares from the shirts and laid them out in a grid pattern.

Layout with my friendly helper

Most of the polos had awesome logos on them, which I wanted to include in some way. I thought a bit about applique-ing them to a border, but I didn’t want there to be lumpy or hard parts throughout the quilt. I decided to put all the logos together in one corner and applique-d them onto a square that already had the Buffalo Bills logo on it. I tacked them down with my sewing machine and then hand stitched around each one to really make sure they don’t go anywhere.

I kept the quilting really simple, two sets of diagonal lines. I used rainbow thread since my aunt was so bright and colorful.

Finished quilt with my cat for scale

This was my big project of 2020 and I’m so glad I was able to deliver it to my uncle before the year’s end. 2020 has been tough on all of us and I’ve struggled to get into my sewing room as often as I’d like, but I chipped away at this project little by little and I’m really happy with the result. I sent it off to my uncle and he sent me back a picture of it with his cat 🙂

Project completed December 2020.

Christmas Bags!

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I decided to use the same website for my Christmas gifts as I did for my purple geode dress – Spoonflower, but making my own designs to be printed on the fabric.

I used GIMP, a photo editing software, to trace some of my own pictures and clip art to make the designs. I used a picture of a clematis flower on my porch to do some tests.

Original clematis flower on my porch
Traced clematis, plus a diagonal repeat
Spoonflower selection – you can choose the type of repeat and the size of the design

And I did a little abstract design of the graptosedum california sunset succulent I had over the summer, too.

I decided to spend the majority of my time on the designs instead of the construction, so I made some simple zipper bags out of the fabric I printed. I have a drawing pen with a tablet that connects to my computer, so I don’t have to draw with the mouse. I start out by tracing a thin outline of the shape, then a thicker and smoother outline. Then I color in the subject and do a background, usually very blurry so that there aren’t any apparent lines when it repeats. GIMP has a feature to offset the design so it will tile, so I use that and make sure that there aren’t any weird empty spaces that would be obvious in the fabric.

I did a design of bats for one of my friends, and lined the bag with a Dungeons and Dragons inspired fabric that someone else designed.

My other friend has a ton of cat themed stuff, but she also owns some geckos! So I wanted to do a bag with some geckos on it. I used a clipart picture of a gecko and made the markings match her specific gecko 🙂 I blurred out some wood clipart for the background. I used some old cactus fabric for the inside, since we’re both plant parents 🙂

One of my friends lives in a different state and I wanted to make her something Colorado themed, so I made some mountains on the Colorado flag and added a bike.

For my secret santa gift in my friend group, I used a picture of my friend’s dog to make two different prints for the exterior and interior of the bag.

Projects completed December 2020.

Humu Humu Embroidery

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A year ago, some friends and I went to Hawaii and I bought these really cool ocean beads for an embroidery project. I wanted to have a humuhumunukunukuapua’a with Maui in the background to honor all our snorkeling adventures 🙂

I pieced some scraps together to make the background, and appliqued the black lava flows on. Using lots of layers made the whole thing a bit thick, plus I sewed a backing stabilizing layer onto the back to help with limiting stretch from the embroidery hoop. Luckily I didn’t have to do much embroidery over the thickest parts.

This was my first time doing beadwork, and it was very labor intensive but fun. I used blue and white beads to make seafoam. For whatever reason, I have a stockpile of random beads that’s lived in my craft box forever, so it was nice to use some up. Plus, since I used scraps and thread I already owned, the only cost of this project was the beads themselves.

I used French knots for the ever-present cloud layer around Haleakala, mixing some white and gray threads.

Once upon a time I bought some gradient thread, which finally came in handy for giving the humuhumu texture in the orangey-yellow portions.

And then I added all my ocean/bubble beads! I tried to be as random as possible and the back of this looks like complete chaos 🙂 I cut some yardsticks to size and glued them into a frame. Embroidery often gets displayed in a circle hoop, but I knew from the beginning this piece was meant to be a rectangle. It sits next to my bird embroidery on my stairwell 🙂

Project completed September 2020.

This is what the back looks like! Thread tie offs, criss crosses, and chaos 🙂

Red Fall Skirt

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This was my first clothing project for someone besides myself! The same friend who I made the bird backpack for asked me to make a swishy, flowy skirt for her. We went to Joann’s together and picked out the main fabric and the accent fabric.

Since she wanted it to be swishy, I decided I’d make a pleated circle skirt, including even more fabric than a regular circle skirt. And including the waistband and pockets, I used up almost all of the main fabric we purchased, which was cool.

I used the accent fabric for a panel about 1/4 to 1/3 of the total skirt, and included a stripe of it in the waistband.

I know that pockets make any skirt at least 10 times better, so I included two huge pockets 🙂 I used a long zipper for the closure and did a double turn hem. I considered doing a lining, but I used so much of the main fabric that it was already a heavy and warm skirt, so any lining would make it a little leg-oven. This way, it can be worn by itself in the fall and with tights in winter. 🙂 I did include a lining in the waistband for additional structure and making sure the seams and raw edges weren’t itchy.

We did a first fitting where we found out the waist was almost perfect… without the seam allowances for the zipper. I inserted a small triangular panel and at the second fitting we got the waistband circumference right and added some small darts so the waistband is flat to her body. Then she graciously made me dinner and I sewed the last seam up afterwards.

Overall it was a bit unnerving to make a piece of clothing without being able to make sure it fit continuously along the way. But it was a good challenge and it turned out great! As usual I used the machine for most of the construction, with hand sewing for the zipper and the last seam. I like having a bit of hand sewing in each of my projects for a bit of an imperfect element.

Project completed October 5, 2020.