W.i.P. - Yoshi 1.0

My appointment today went just swell. Thanks so much for keeping your fingers crossed! Think of me again on Thursday between 9am and 1pm UTC+1? Ta.

As I've got a moment to breathe before returning to my notes for Thursday, I thought I'd let you know of my inspiration for the Yoshi quilt. Follow the links to see the original sources.

I aim for a monochrome sky to make the background less busy but will otherwise stick with the pattern. Though I think I'll add another row of pixels to each side. I want the quilt to be really big and wide as M is nearly 2 metres tall and he deserves something that he can properly fit under.

Yoshi

I'm pretty sure that I should have enough fabric to add an egg to the back of the quilt, too. That'll be a cute addition.

Yoshi egg

I think it's time for an updated WIP list!

Finishes since the Move - 2
Viking Baby quilt
Chair cushions for my sister

Ongoing Projects - 4
Yoshi quilt - fabrix ready to be cut up and sewn together
EPP hexies - 32 finished flowers + tons basted
Polaroid blocks Tote - will it ever get made?
EPP parallelograms/stars

Planning Stage - 1
Wedding Anniversary quilt

Wow, it's certainly shrunk a lot. What a pleasant feeling! I already know of a few projects which will enter the stage soon. Stay tuned.

Happy sewing!

The Odyssey Continues

So we're still offline (I'm in a copy shop right now because there's things I have to get done). It's quite the odyssey except it's more like David against Goliath and we're neither of them. It's the company we'd like to be with against a company that control most of the lines. We're most likely ending up with them, for double the amount of money and more, after all, because this situation is unbearable. Does my head in.

Anyway, to cheer everybody up, here's a look at yardage and yardage of fabric for my next project which I'll start in two weeks' time and will try to accomplish in roughly a working week.

The biiig Yoshi quilt will finally be happening. Keep your fingers crossed that I'll get everything machine-related done between the 16th in the morning and the 20th in the evening. That's when we'll leave for Berlin to be with our families and catch up with our friends over Christmas and New Year's. The quilt is a gift that has to be in Berlin for an early January birthday and I'd like to save the postage. Further, I don't know yet when we'll return to Bavaria exactly so I really only have those five days for all the major work. Knock on wood.

As the extended Christmas stay will prove another sewing machine-less time I need to come up with things to do by the tree. I might take along my hexies and some knitting. Not quite sure yet.

I should be back next Monday with the long anticipated picture post about the Viking quilt. Til then - happy sewing!

W.i.P. - Kirby's Adventure in My Living/Sewing Room (4)

I had a fantastic hen night with a small-ish group of wonderful friends and family. Can't thank them enough for taking the time to send me off - especially my sister who took on all the planning on top of being with me at multiple other crucial stages pre-wedding. Thinking the same, Kirby begged me to spend time with him again and get him ready in time to be a thank you gift after the wedding rather than a birthday gift in November. I happily obliged.

After squaring the little fellow I added narrow borders which I then quilted. I also quilted in the ditch around Kirby with black thread.

I finished the pillow with an envelope back.

Kirby's glamour shot.

Something else I worked on is my wedding purse. I made a mock-up of the outside from my self-drawn pattern. It's a bit floppy like this, without batting and lining. I think I will reinforce the fabric with a very light iron-on interfacing. Something to try out on scraps.

A friend of mine has kindly agreed to embroider our names and date onto a lining piece with her machine. Once I get that back I can finish my purse... and get married! Fifteen days now!

Happy sewing!

Stats for the Week
Finished Projects - 1
Kirby pillow

Ongoing Projects - 5
EPP hexies - 29 finished flowers
Polaroid blocks Tote
EPP parallelograms/stars
Viking Baby quilt - started cutting
Wedding clutch - made a mock-up

Planning Stage - 4
Wedding Anniversary quilt
ET Phone Home EPP project
Moe Moe's Star quilt
Chair cushions for my sister

Kirby's Adventure in My Living/Sewing Room (3)

Last night we left Kirby looking like this.

Ten seams and some severe pressing later he's finally himself again.

Can I get a hooray? It's quite a way (and size) from this.

 And yep, he is slightly wonky which is best witnessed in this shot of the wrong side.

Single strips evidently weren't a great idea after all. I don't really mind though. I keep on carrying it over to the fiancé shouting "KIRBYYY!! KIRBYYY!!". Yes, I'm in love. Not sure I can keep this secret from my sis until her birthday in November. That's an awful lot time to keep secret what you're excited about and I think this will be finished in two weeks the latest if my sewing time allows.

As for the wonkiness, I've got a cunning plan (cool points if you know what I'm referencing!). Haha, nah, not really cunning. I guess I'll just square it up again and don't care about the cut pixels. Or I'll add angled borders and increase the size to 50cm² rather than the aimed at 40cm²

Look here if you've missed Part 1 and/or Part 2.

I'm off to finally sew up the second toile of my hen night dress. Happy sewing!

Kirby's Adventure in My Living/Sewing Room (2)

This is where we left off in Part 1 of Kirby's Adventure in my Living/Sewing Room.

And now he's shrinking!!

Looking all skinny and hungry.

Intriguing even from the wrong side.

All scrunched up and funky looking after half the horizontal seams are sewn and before cutting the seam allowances open to iron them down.

After a press, looking less skinny but still not finished.

 

Watchful eyes will already have noticed that Kirby is slightly unbalanced and the square don't match up in perfect straight seams. I guess I should have bitten the bullet and ironed my squares onto a larger piece of fusible web after all - but as shown here by quilting princess with a pencil grid (!) on it and in sections (minus the daughter, obviously). Ah well, we never stop learning!

Kirby is a lot stiffer now and the horizontal seams are a bit of a pain to take care of with my big iron. Right now I'm not sure I'd make another pixellated thing. Probably not a pillow but rather a quilt with much bigger pixels and without fusible web. It's absolutely possible that I turn the literal 180° once this baby is all done and fab, though. I've even got a tentative idea for quilting but will keep mum about it for the moment.

Hoping you're having a splendid weekend!

Kirby's Adventure in My Living/Sewing Room

Remember these? I finally started putting them together.

When I first mentioned my plans, Emily from Phone Home Designs by E.T. recommended that I use fusible web to speed up the assembling process and prevent pulling. I liked that idea a lot but since the project (still) isn't urgent, I have waited for the tutorial that Angela promised for her Super Mario Bros. QAL to see whether she might have found another ingenuous method. She has, but unfortunately I cannot find Angela's recommended wash-out stabiliser over here, so I resorted to Vilene H 200 - one of the thinnest fusible webs that I've used before to interface waistbands of summery light skirts. That way I hope to prevent too much stiffness because I still want the pillow to cuddly.

However, I didn't lay out the whole image onto a large piece of interfacing. I was too scared of accidentally moving bits and ruining everything. So I cut strips of interfacing that I ironed onto single rows of pixels.

My little book for crafty plans and the necessary math with the sketched layout - can you see that I ticked off each vertical row as I went? OCD or carefulness? (Yes, I used it to count the necessary amount of pixels per colour, too! And nearly forgot the black 'mouth' pixel. I wondered for the longest time why I only counted 399 pixels all in all. Duh.)

This is how far I got on Wednesday until I ran out of fusible web of an appropriate length. Meh. I thought I'd quickly rush to my regular supply shop should the rain deem to subside for a moment (yep, our weather is just as bad as yours, British friends, I literally feel your pain) but then I had to get some pressing grocery shopping done and the fickle weather held me back. So the fun had to be delayed until after yesterday's trip to the citizen centre where I wanted to request my new ID (I want to have it as soon as I'm married and not weeks after).

The wait was long. Looong. Long enough to finish all these. And only the grey ones were pre-assembled!

Today I spent my lunch break to finish the remaining eight pixel strips and this is what Kirby looks like at the moment.
 

Oooh, I can't wait sew the rows together. He'll shrink so much but it'll be fun to see that happening. Like the mushroom over at Sarah's blog? Fingers crossed I find time for it and the second toile of my hen night dress this weekend. We're rather busy at the moment.

Have a great weekend and happy sewing!