Well Basted/Well Vested

I brought the Irish Chain quilt to school with me one evening, and managed to get it all basted on the 12' print tables. It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Now I'm wishing that I'd gotten thicker battering, though. I'm sure this will quilt really nicely, but it's not going to be very warm. I'm thinking of buying a down comforter and just using this on top (for me, at least, my boyfriend is very hot blooded, I'm sure this will be the perfect weight for him. 

Also while I was at school getting my jump-suit patterns in order, I traced out a darted-vest pattern from a vest I own. It was a little bit of an oversized fit, which I liked. Last night I couldn't quite commit myself to one of my existing projects, so I made up a quick vest with some thrifted fabric to test it out.  

The back--I hate that weird silky stuff they normally use as the back on vests, so I just used the same fabric throughout. 

 And the lining, which is actually a scrap of hand-dyed fabric from one of my students this summer. Anything they didn't take with them joined my fabric stash. Most of it got cut up for seam samples, but I had a big chunk of this, and it matched nicely. 

Progress on the rag-rug, with my new shoes there for size-reference.  This is six shirt's worth so far. Slowly getting better at joining the braids together, it's a bit lumpy in the middle. 

Bedroom Essentials

It's occurred to me that the two projects I'm working on right now are both for my new bedroom. I've always been awful at decorating, I tend to just go for ugly utilitarian furniture. But I'm trying to make an effort to make our new apartment a little more homey and pleasant on the eyes. I finally bought a bedside table for the bedroom, and stopped using one of Seamus's old amps to put our alarm clock on. Baby steps! 

The backing and batting for the Irish Chain quilt finally arrived. I couldn't find an extra wide backing fabric I liked enough to justify the cost, so I bought 9 yards of a normal width fabric on sale. I think the busy multicolored floral is a good match for the busyness of the front. I'm now waiting for a chance to get to school to use the print tables to baste it together--I don't have enough floor space in my house for it. 

I've also wanted to get some rugs for the apartment, we have pretty rough wood floors, and I think they're going to be cold in the winter.  But any rugs I liked were too expensive, and any that were cheap were ugly and gross feeling, so I decide to make a braided rug. 

$9 from the thrift store for starting materials. I washed and dried them to get the 'thrift store smell' out. Then  I cut them apart and cut into 2" strips. 

Strips joined and wound into balls! The knit fabrics fold onto themselves really nicely and leave a clean edged tube. I went for florals, blues, and purples, and each braid has a light, medium, and dark tone. I figure it will go well with the new quilt, and I have a neat painting on the wall that's largely a periwinkle tone. 

So far I've got yards and yards of braid, but I'm only just starting to spiral it into a circle. 

Toting, Sketching

Row D is finished, Row E is just begun. At this rate, I'll be done with this quilt in 4 or 5 years, haha! But I keep on trucking, slowly. This is D-11 to E-2. Pretty straightforward blocks, I think the diamond-in-a-square might have been the easiest one yet. A lot of teal and purple in these blocks!

A quickie project. I was sick of carrying around ugly freebie totes that I've gotten from shoe companies, so I decided to make one myself. Super easy, and I quite like it, I might go to Jomar and get some more ribbon/tape for straps. It's a little hard to get in a photo, but the straps on this are a floro, safety orange. 

All nice and clean inside! I modeled it after one I got from Sofft shoes. It's about 3/4 of the size of that one though (the side pieces are 8"x16") I might make a full sized one too. 

Quite pleased! I know it a really simple thing, but I wonder if I could sell a few of them? Anyone interested?

I've also been taking a lot of time to sketch lately, trying to get back into drawing for the possible-comic-project I don't really want to talk about yet. I feel super, super rusty but it also feels good to work it out. 

Practicing with brush-and-ink. I searched 'lounging' on flickr, had a lot of fun drawing all the weird ways people 'lounge'

More brush and ink and watercolor. Trying to break the sort of anime-ish 'one-face' syndrome I had when I was younger--working on giving the characters very distinct body and face types. 

More watercolor sketching.

And even some creature creation, which is something I really have never done before. It's a Maid-Troll, a sort of low-level demon you can summon to clean your dorm room for you. Or something. Really I just wanted to try and draw a very ugly creature in a little maid outfit. 

Replication

It looked like Philly Aids Thrift got a big donation of fabric, there was quite a bit when I last went, and I ended up buying a few pieces. I'm determined this fall to buy less, and make more of my clothing. The top piece feels like upholstery fabric, burn test seems to indicate cotton. The bottom is a pretty amazing woven pattern with animals, it seems to be cotton or rayon maybe--might eventually become a vest. 

I think this was originally a tablecloth, it's a nice thick cotton. It's a huge pieces of fabric, I'm hoping to get a scarf and a shirt out of it. 

Definitely going to incorporate the border print into the shirt. 

I've had this jean jacket for a year or so, and I wear it all the time, with sweaters shoved under it when it's gotten too cold to wear it on it's own. And I thought the very first fabric I got from the thrift store would be great to make a replica of my jean jacket with. First, of course, I traced out the pattern from the jean jacket. I omitted the bottom pockets, they've always been sort of tiny and useless. 

I forgot (like usual) to take pictures while I was working, but here's the finished replica with the original! The fabric was sort of a disaster to work with, it liked to warp and bend, and frayed everywhere. But I'm still pretty happy with the outcome.

I'm making a terrible face because it's too hot in my un-airconditioned studio to put a jacket on. The pockets a sticking out a bit funny, I'm hoping when I put the snaps on them, they'll lie flat. This fabric would definitely not do well with buttonholes, so snaps it is, I found some decorative silver domed ones I like. 

And the braids are starting to get joined together. I haven't quite gotten the trick of laying the tape so it's right in the center of both sides. I've been pinning one side, flipping over, they basting all the way through to hold them in place while I stitch on both edges. It takes forever! I'm hoping to figure out a better way.