Wait...doesn't this blog belong to a Hufflepuff?

Yes, but, it's healthy to explore our darker sides every now and then, right?

First, a Slytherin-themed stencilled tee:

From a Tom Felton quote. I resized Jen's Slytherin Crest to about 5 inches and used the Windows font 'Blackadder' for the text.

And then I had this:

An actual motivational relic from 1996. But it's got really nice graph paper inside, and it was green and black, so I had to reformat it to Slytherin specs.

I spend way too much time on the Cheezburger network. I am easily amused. One of my stops on the Cheezburger train is Very Demotivational. This is where people take the signature black border/white text (see photo above) and insert LOLs with funny capshunz. So I had to change this notebook to a demotivational, toungue-in-cheek, Slytherin 'artwork'.

I browsed BrainyQuote (a slight misnomer, considering the site contains quotes from such illustrious luminaries as Jay-Z and Paris Hilton) for quotes related to opportunity, and found the perfect one from George Eliot. Then I browsed my collection of Dover images for clipart and grabbed some elements off the web (Salazar's locket, a Slytherin house tie, a crest), and printed them all on parchment printer paper. I cut them out with my trusty XActo and proceeded to Podge!

When decoupaging, I thin my ModPodge with a bit of water and apply the goop all the way to the edges of the piece using a foam brush. I always work on wax paper, bringing a few sheets to my work area so I can have a fresh surface when the decoupage medium gets messy. Any excess medium that oozes out the edges can be wiped away after you position the piece on your surface.

And that's it! Now I can draft patterns and sketch layouts to my heart's content, all the while being demotivated!

TABABOM Elvish Bag

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

Here is my small contribution to FiS's There and Back Again Block of the Month. This is the May prize for the winner of the Flickr Group random drawing.

And a closer look at the stitching:

I have to be honest, I am not crazy about Hobbits. But I enjoy reading Tolkien's work and absolutely adore the languages that he constructed. Seriously, here is one guy doing the work of multiple generations of people working out their own linguistic patterns. It's fascinating and a bit awe-inspiring. (If I hadn't become a graphic designer, I just might have been a linguist. Or an ethnobotanist. Or a costume designer.)

Anyway. How I would love to have the time to devote to learning Quenya. One of these days.

Like any good researcher *rolls eyes*, I quote Wikipedia:

The ring-inscription is in the Black Speech, a language devised by Sauron and used in his land of Mordor. It is written in tengwar. The inscription embodied the One Ring's power to control the other Rings of Power. The inscription used Elvish letters because the Black Speech did not have its own script. 

This circle inscription design is pretty widespread across the internet: you can even get one for your Macbook. But I first found it on Quenya101. (The entry with the original graphic is here.)

Here is a little bit about how I created this project. I've done a few embroidered bags, many of them beginning with Simplicity 4178. I've modified this pattern extensively for different bags, and for this project I drafted a new shape altogether. If you'd like to create your own embroidered bag, it can be done with just about any bag pattern or tutorial out there, as long as it's got a relatively flat surface...not gathered where your design will be obscured. Just cut a piece of fabric with a lot of extra room, that will allow you to cut out the bag pattern easily once you've finished embroidering.

For a long time, I thought that stitching through tracing paper was only for difficult, high-pile, or heavily textured fabrics like velvet. But it turns out that this method of image transfer makes intricate stitching much quicker.

I printed my Elvish circle on regular tracing paper and basted it to a rectangle of black twill, large enough to give some wiggle room when I finally got around to cutting out the pattern pieces:

Once basted in place, I began stitching through both the paper and fabric with a double-strand DMC floss. (Triple strand for the circles.) It went really quickly because I didn't have to keep verifying the design or squinting to see the blue transfer lines!

The only disadvantage to this method is that the tracing paper obscures the stitching you've already done, so that you have to be careful about getting really close backstitches. Also, I wouldn't recommend doing french knots through the paper (come back and do those after the paper is off) because it's hard to get them at the right tension through the paper.

The paper tears away easily; though, you might need to use a pin or tweezers to convince those last few bits to come off:

Ta-da!

I hope whoever wins this month's prize over at TABABOM really enjoys this bag, and maybe feels inspired to try some Elvish embroidery of their own!

:)

Projects from the Past: The Snape-ification of the Project of Doom

Since my crafting time will soon be abbreviated (helloooo, master's program), I will occasionally post Projects from the Past. I'll definitely try to keep up my blog with what I am currently crafting, but there are some finished projects I'd like to chronicle here as well.

I recently finished my Project of Doom. For anyone who might not know, this was a block-of-the-week Harry Potter-themed bookcase quilt from ofenjen at Fandom in Stitches. All the patterns are still available there, for free.

This 30-week project was an amazing journey. I made so many new friends and ended up with a piece of textile art that is so personal and precious to me. Part of the special nature of this project comes from the fact that it is very customisable. I chose book titles that would actually reside on my wizardy bookshelf, if I had one. I chose fabrics (almost entirely from my stash, a feat which I'm very proud of) that looked either worn or muted or just plain magical. Lastly, and what this post is mainly about, I modified some of Jennifer's blocks to cater to my fascination with Professor Snape.

Here is the finished quilt. I drafted the bookcase  pieces using my beloved french curves (passed down from my engineer grandfather). The bookcase pieces are fused and machine-appliqued. I chose the background floral because it reminded me of a William Morris-designed wallpaper.

Now on to some of the individual blocks and how I modified them to fit my Snape-tastic theme. I should preface all this by stating, for the record, that I'm not a traditionally crazed Snape fangirl. I've never read any fanfiction except the lovely Advent story from Muffin on LJ. I've never cosplayed with anyone Snapey (though, I'm still working on getting my dear hubbie to let me dress him in a frock coat. ;) ) It was just so very weird that the character captivated me. I love to read, but only non-fiction. For some reason, the way Rowling wrote Snape affected me in such a manner that I developed a mild obsession. I've had a grand time imagining the character's motives and backstory. So I put it all into a quilt!

Here is the block from week 2:

The leftmost block is Advanced Potion Making, even though it's illegible with the busy print. Again, these are all books I would have on my bookcase at Spinner's End.

Here's Week 7:

Nothing overtly Snape-ish here, but my Snape reads sonnets. Hey, he wrote the rhyming couplets for the obstacle in The Philosopher's Stone, so why not?

Here is Week 8:

And a detail:

Again, potion-y titles. Also, my Snape trained with a shaman in the Amazon for six months, so he's a talented healer.

Week 11:

I omitted the lovely Hedwig in favour of lace...wing...flies. The potions bottle pattern is from PJ of craftylilthing.


Detail from Week 12:

This is a detail from the book with the lightning bolt. I chose to embroider this title because it was at the end of reading The Half-Blood Prince that I became truly ensnared intrigued by Snape.

Week  14:

I modified the piecing of the wand to reflect the shape of the Professor's. The more legible APM book is printed on inkjet-printable fabric.

Here's a detail of the wand handle, embroidered to resemble the Chinese knot motif on the movie Snape's wand:

Week 28:

This was a block with Trevor. Trevor got swapped for a gold-framed picture of Milltown (now known as Cokeworth thanks to Pottermore). The irony is in the gilding.

Week 29 detail:

Yes, that cauldron says "Property of Potions Master Severus Snape".


I hope if you're a Harry Potter fan and you haven't started - or finished - your PoD yet, you'll give it a go. Whether you're an all-around HP fan or you subscribe to a specific sect of fangirlism, the Project of Doom is an amazing way to express your enthusiasm. If you take the time to make this quilt your own, what you'll end up with is an artwork you will truly treasure.

:)

The Best of Both Worlds

Any Trekkers out there?

Please visit Fandom in Stitches today to download the free paperpieced patterns for 'NCC-1701-D' and 'The Borg'.

These are the second and third blocks I've designed. The Borg block is incredibly easy to piece and the Enterprise is actually quite do-able despite the teeny tiny pieces.

And, naturally, I'm working on embroidery to embellish these a bit. I will share updated patterns as soon as I can get the stitching done!

Thanks to instant streaming on Netflix my infatuation with ST:TNG has been rekindled. I've been spending extra quality time on my treadmill, reabsorbed in my first fandom. I had forgotten how much I love TNG, especially the technical stuff. Ships and space stations? Tricorders and transporters? Yes, please!

Enjoy the patterns, and if you piece them, please do share on the FiS Flickr Group!

Garden Gate

Welcome to Joy of Stitches!

I am new to blogging - this is my first post - but a friend suggested I should start blogging my craftiness, so here we are!


Today’s post is about ‘Garden Gate’, the paperpieced block I designed for the Sewhooked April Garden Party Blog Hop.  

 You can download the pattern right here.

This sample is slightly different (in piecing only - not in appearance) than the paper pattern due to pattern improvements. The center archway has been simplified in the printed pattern to use fewer seamlines.

As I'm sure many of my fellow crafters and quilters have done, I've often dreamed of my perfect garden. With this block, I was able to recreate a little of it...if only in fabric and floss! A stone path leads to a gate and trellis overlooking the rolling hills beyond the garden. I populated my garden with some of my best-loved blooms: wisteria, poppies, delphinium, gladiolus, and peonies. The embroidery design is included with the block pattern. Or feel free to plant what you wish in your 'garden'!

I am relatively new to the world of paperpiecing and quilting in general, but I was fortunate enough to be a part of The Project of Doom, Sewhooked owner Jennifer’s Harry Potter Block of the Week quilt. I learned SO much making those thirty blocks. I modified some of Jennifer’s blocks to suit my own devious purposes (more on that in another post...) but ‘Garden Gate’ is the first one I have designed from start to finish. (Actually, Jennifer helped tremendously in helping me finish it, simplifying the piecing from 13 units down to 8!)


I hope you enjoy piecing this pattern, which is very versatile depending on the fabrics you use. I’m thinking about a four-block wall hanging featuring the four seasons.


Customization of this block can be taken even further with embroidery. Needlework is my first passion, and it was a joy to populate my garden in this block.


On to the embroidery tips!


Transferring the design.


Keep in mind the embroidery design included with the pattern is based on the printed pattern. When you transfer your design, you may need to make slight adjustments along the way to compensate for the Real Life block that you sew. Tiny variations in the seams of the block can make a big difference when they accumulate in the final block.


Because of all the seam allowances, light box transfer might be difficult - the layers of fabric are too dense for the light to shine through. I used a combination of two methods to transfer my design - tracing paper and water-soluble marker. 


The tracing paper method is traditionally used for stitching on problematic surfaces, such as velvet or other highly textured fabrics. Tracing paper worked well for the first part of the embroidery on this block. I printed the design on tracing paper and basted it to the block. I then stitched through  both the paper and the fabric and tore away the paper when I was finished. For this project, I only stitched the stem stitch lines through the tracing paper. I’ve found that french knots tend to be loose when stitched through tracing paper.


Unfortunately, I neglected to get a picture of this part of the process, but I do have a shot of the same method on another project:

The black is the fabric, the white is the tracing paper, and the gold is the stem stitch sewn through both paper and fabric.


After stem stitching and removing the tracing paper, I used water soluble marker to freehand the rest of the design, using the printed pattern as reference. You could also use quilter’s transfer paper or dressmaker’s carbon for this step.

Preparing to stitch.

Whenever I have a piece that I’m going to stitch to the very edge, I baste muslin around the edges to give a little extra space for hooping. Here, you can see my basting in red:

The largest hoop I have is a 10”, which happens to be the size of this block. Not ideal. You could use a larger quilting hoop or square frame, one that allows you to see your whole block at once and eliminated the need for re-hooping.

Stitching.

I used variegated floss for most of the blooms. I mixed variegated and solid green for the wisteria vines and french-knot leaves. I used 2 strands on the whole piece. Here are some closeups of the stitching:

Finishing.

If my pieces are washable, I always wash the whole thing when I’m finished stitching. I do this for two reasons: to ensure that I fully remove all traces of water-soluble marker, and to make reshaping of the piece easier. When wet, the block can be reshaped easily into the square it’s supposed to be! Here's my sopping wet block:

To press, place your embroidered block face-down on a fluffy, folded, terry-cloth towel. This will allow the stitches to maintain their dimension while you press.

That’s it for post 1! I would love to hear from you, with any questions or comments about this block or the embroidery. 


Enjoy the rest of the Sewhooked garden party!

Welcome to Joy of Stitches!

Thank you for visiting my new blog.

Please come back on April 3rd to see my first post, which will go along with Sewhooked's Garden Party Blog Hop.

See you then!