It's Not the Moths Pillow

This one of a kind, handmade pillow features an image of my 'Moths' linocut, printed on a cotton silk blend fabric with a soft sheen. The reverse of the pillow is pin-striped greys and browns with irridescent threads and a beige and turquoise butterfly print cotton. The pillow is about 14.5" by 12" (37 cm by 31 cm). You might recall my explanation of my broadside:

I got no quarrel with the insects. Just because they have six legs and an exoskeleton is no reason to revile 'em. The beasties of the Lepidoptera order are beautiful and multifarious. We take their cousins the butterflies as symbols of the soul. I've personally long maintained that butterflies are the new pirates, with their ever-increasing popularity. I understand that insects will share my habitat - and even my home - as they, after all, were here first. We may even compete for the same resources in our shared environment. It's just the expensive tastes of the moths... they've crossed the line. It's not like I even own very many cashmere items, and the little #$@& went after them all.

So, I had the broadsides printed onto fabric, to make lovely cushions. Surely, the moths are now quaking in their boots. All 6 of them.

Space Jellyfish Fractal Triangle Quilt

Yes, you read right. Reynardin seems to have given me the plague her cold, but I have managed to sew with a fever this week. See, I had some completely awesome (if I do say so myself) space fabric printed with imagery I downloaded from NASA (credit: NASA/courtesy of nasaimages.org). They kindly keep the vast majority of their photography open source and you can use it, though they appreciate a credit. See? I did too need more fabric.



So, I planned this quilt as a giant fractal Sierpiński Triangle, with nested lino block printed fractal Sierpiński Triangles). Also, some of the downward pointing triangles which by default are space imagery are replaced by my block printed jellyfish on dark blue fabric). I carefully arranged the triangles so that areas with nebulae were nearby one another (nebulous areas? nebularful? nebulicious?) and the starry, mostly dust-free regions were near one another. So it's space, jellyfish, fractal triangle FTW. This is just the quilt top, so this is still a work in progress. I bought some glow-in-the-dark thread for the actual quilting, bwhahaha!






I'll get some proper photos of it when it's complete.

Scrappy Strip Quilts

I really like the photos posted by The Workroom's flickr stream. You can see most of the other quilts made in their classes if you follow this link.

Quilting stripes

I'm taking a quilting course at the workroom. If you've followed the blog for a while you'll know this is my second quilt. The first one I made I a) taught myself how to make it b) use printmaking methods on every single panel and c) took me over FOUR YEARS. So, I'm taking this course and attempting to make a (much smaller, mind you) quilt within THREE WEEKS (there's a lot of 'homework' in this class). It's a lot of labour! However, I thought it was worth my while to learn the tricks of the trade, as it were. In fact, advice I've had about measuring, cutting and pressing fabric, not to mention stabilizing small pieces, in our first class, has been tremendously valuable and could have saved me a lot of grief. A lot of it boils down to using the proper tool for the job (oh! the irony! that's practically my mantra as ocean-going geophysicist) as well as (another shocker) proper maintenance of tools. So, I'm going to make a somewhat more traditional quilt and once I learn how to do that properly (which, in fairness, could be a life-long process, but I mean once I have a firm grasp of the fundamentals) then, I can mess with these tools and methods and try the crazy quilt-like textile schemes in my head.

This is the stage where the interesting mathematics of quilting starts to come into play, if you're into that sort of thing which I don't think you are, so don't panic. The basic planning is just arithmetic, but now we have permutations, tessallations, algebra and geometry to consider. We could make x's, chevrons, zigzags or diamonds. This is my plan. I scanned all my squares and then played with orientations in software, since floor space is scarce.



By 'plan' I mean, this is the way I intend to make groups of four squares, and the sashing I have in mind. There may be some more variations.

I've used a lot of my scraps and bits of nifty contemporary prints, but I've also thrown in a lot of crazy thrifted vintage fabric. I'm quite pleased how beautiful that combination can be. You can look at each square by clicking on it. I wonder if you would know the age of the fabric by looking at it.

RJH picked me up after class last week. He said a group of 'drunken party girls' stumbled by and one exclaimed, "They're quilting in there! Quilting!" in complete disbelief. They were followed by a couple. The young man said to his girlfriend, "Maybe I should ask those ladies to sew me some drapes, because you're never going to." They rent machines by the hour - I hope she suggested he could sew his own drapes. Ah, Parkdale on a Thursday night.

Lion & Lioness Pillow

This pillow features blockprinted fabric, with a portrait of a lion and lioness in the tall grass. I was inspired to carve the lino block by a photograph my mother took in the Ngorongoro conservation area in Tanzania. It is called, "The Watchers, Ngorongoro". The photo gives the strong impression the lions are watching the people back.

The front of the pillow is a patchwork with a contemporary paisley fabric in grass green and teal, with a blue faux-bois print. The reverse is a pale green corduroy with a stripe of vintage floral fabric. The pillow is 15.5" by 11.5" (or 39 cm by 31 cm).

Cat Pillows

So, I held off posting this because I didn't want young Master Ernerst W. (& parents) to see the original cat pillow (and 0th birthday gift) until it had arrived in the mail. I thought Mr. E would be fast friends with Mr. Sammy Samuelson, Cat, Esquire, so I made him his very own Sammy, block-printed, patchwork fabric cat. Knowing his mother, Lady Redjeep's pashion for thrifting, I thought some vintage fabric was in order. I also used my collection of letterpress letters and some embroidery to personalize it for him.




(Also, personally, the way gifts for infants tend to be highly gendered irks me, so I avoided all that non-sense: we've got denim and faux-bois on one hand and vintage florals on the other).

Next, someone who has been won over to appreciate cats by the intrepid Minouette, seemed to really love this print and project, so I made a second cat pillow:




And then, I thought I'd make a couple for the shop. Since these cats are the spawn of the Mr. Sammy Samuelson, Cat, Esquire lino block, their names are linked to his. Meet Samantha:




and Samir:

bats, mushrooms & jellyfish - on pillows

As I attempt to convalesce at home (I am a bad sick person), I'm running a little minouette sweatshop. Here are some of my latest pillows (tip o' the hat to Gqueen who suggested a bat pillow):






Block printed bat on cotton with block printed fly agaric mushrooms on silk in a patchwork with wool and cotton fabrics on the front of this pillow. The reverse is a gray printed linen (airplanes, dots, and stripes) with a pin-striped cotton and red tentacle minouette label.





Block printed jellyfish on cotton print, in patchwork with printed and woven (including handwoven Nepalese) fabrics on front of pillow. Reverse is printed city scene and tweed. The pillow is 37 cm by 32 cm (14.6 inches by 12.6 inches).

By the way, I hope everyone is having a fabulous (Canadian) Thanksgiving!