A Few Pillows

It’s been awhile, guys, but I’ve been crafting away! Here are a few of the things I’ve been working on. I made a new SHIELD pillow (round and very fluffy) in honor of Season 3 (which, holy crap, guys, holy crap, Season 3). I tried to take just the circle bits of an orange peel and make a 20″ circle out of that, but the first time I tried it it was like 18″. I re-did it, but then I had a random giant orange peel. The office manager at work has been after me for months to make her an Alabama pillow and that seemed like a perfect use of both my orphan orange peel and the extra bits of dead body pillow that I had lying around. Mostly, check out those eagle claws! Applique booooss.

Now, of course, I’ve got three pillow requests in from coworkers and have insisted on charging for materials, if not labor. I don’t like these people enough to keep doing crafts for them!

Trust Cap: Completed!!

It took six months and more hours of actual work than I’d care to count, but my Trust Cap quilt is done! I’m super-proud of it. I’ve spent the past week working on it from the time I got off work until the wee hours of the morning, but it’s been worth it.

And now, to wrap up in it like a burrito and get down to my Agents of SHIELD re-watch.

Here are some detail shots. Sorry about the lighting—my apartment is not the best on sunlight. There are a lot more photos from various states of completion in the project tag.

The thing about taking the fruits of your labor to work is then everybody wants stuff.

My super-cool pillows resulted in a lot of awe and plenty of requests. My work-bestie asked for both Green Lantern and The Flash. And since I love challenges, quilting, and perfectly recreating pop culture things in craft-y form, I was like “challenge accepted!” These are both modified Drunkard’s Path blocks simply arranged to form circles. The one for the Flash is the original template size for a 13″ block out of EQ. The Green Lantern one I made the quarter-circles an inch larger. Then I pretty much just up-sized logos until they were the right size and traced them off of my computer screen onto fabric for applique. The process is not that complicated, but the results are pretty cool. Sharp points—both inside and outside—are plenty hard, though!

The weirdest thing about this project was that literally the only DC fabric I could find was Wonder Woman, and that was a lucky break. Not even Batman? Come on, guys! I may be a Marvel Girl, but it’s getting creepy when the only stuff you can find is Marvel.

The Woman Woman fabric is cute though.

Giant Fluffy Cap Shield

So, my chair at work is possessed by Satan. Or a poltergeist. Or something. It is one of the most uncomfortable chairs I’ve ever had to sit in for 8 hours straight. The “ergonomic” shape is some kind of torture device disguised as a chair, and the arms are just straight up hard metal with no kind of covering. I squirm a lot. I don’t sit in a chair like a normal human being. This situation was untenable. I made the Dodgers pillow to try and fix some of that, and my Marvel logo TV Hugger has ended up as my “save my wrist from irreversible carpal tunnel damage” desk pillow. But that damn chair was still trying to murder me. I needed something giant, fluffy, and not designated for my TV emotions. That is, I needed something new.

I loved the wheel pattern I made for Cap’s shield in my Trust Cap quilt so I figured I’d give a round pillow a try. Behold, Cap’s shield! Saving my body from a slow death one fluffy hour at a time. Sidenote: my work chair is now 100% covered in pillows. I also got the star way better on this one than on the one from Trust Cap. Live and learn.

Bed Sheet Curtains (Mostly) Done!

I still need to hem them but here are the curtains in all their glory. I used the fitted sheets as well. I pulled out all the elastic (which I don’t recommend unless you are insane or need a very patient, calming project) and then I pulled out the corner seams and opened them up. Then I decided to go for length and cut off the sides. Then I hemmed the sides, cut the flat sheet to match, and made the top bits for the curtain rod. This resulted in some pretty skinny curtains, especially the sets that were Twin and Full (the fancy ones in the centers), but that was why I bought the solid sheets as well. Together, they look awesome and cover the windows more than adequately. Not a hard project, just a long one. Lots of seam ripping, pinning, and sewing long straight seams. I think they turned out nicely. Further decoration for my apartment is forthcoming. Just not presently. I’m too tired.

Bed Sheet Curtains

Okay, who (besides me) actually believed I would really truly go on a craft hiatus? Probably no one. Ah well. My new apartment has huge windows which I love. But all of my previous curtains won’t even cover them. So I went out shopping for some curtains. Curtains are expensive. Like $20 per panel expensive. I thought maybe I’d make some but even fabric on sale was going to set me back $100+. Cue me walking down the clearance sheet aisle and spotting those insane floral/paisley neon sheets for $9. The other sets came shortly thereafter, once I was like “hm. Sheets are a lot of fabric. Those are cheap. I have a sewing machine.” They’re all in the wash and it’s too late at night to start now, but this is my project for the week. Looking at my windows right now, the solid sets may have been overkill. But they’ll make a pretty frame, anyway.

Desk Pillow, a la Long Distance California Dreamin’

I know I swore off crafts for a while but it occurred to me that having something to rest my elbow and wrist on at work would help. I took my SHIELD pillow in to give it a try and ended Friday with an arm that almost didn’t even hurt. Huzzah! The (minor) problem is that my SHIELD pillow is both huge and slightly less than professional. So far, my biggest projects at work have been related to the Los Angeles Dodgers. I love baseball, the Dodgers were literally my first ever baseball game, and I have a strange and unhealthy fixation on Los Angeles, so I figured that if this qualified as “for work” it would neither violate my craft hiatus nor my incestuous MLB allegiances. And I could take it to work without feeling transgressive. This whole project took me eight hours tops and 98% of it came from Trust Cap scraps. It’s also possible that I stuffed the homemade pillow form way too hard, but we’ll see how it goes on Monday.

Beatnik Pullover Finished!

Woo, two posts in one day! This is one of the projects that I’ve had sitting around for like three years in various states of completion. I watched Orphan Black to finish the body (which I think was appropriate considering) and did the sleeves while forcing everyone into Agents of SHIELD. Which means it’s been sitting in my craft pile for literally a month only needing the collar done. Yesterday I did the collar and this afternoon I sewed it all together and weaved (wove?) in the ends.

Lovely pictures from the 80°F afternoon in my new wool sweater. I usually make sweaters very long, but this one I made as written (short) and with slightly-longer-but-still-short sleeves. It’s stylized and really does look beatnik-ish. I like it. I didn’t even have to block it.

One completed project to take off the spreadsheet, yaaay! Too bad I chucked an entire Agents of SHIELD inspired sock series on there this morning.

It would be novel if I finished a project before I started six new ones

I would just like you to know: I have begun designing a FitzSimmons propaganda poster. And at this point, “poster” is a loose term for “I’m gonna quilt that.”

Trust Cap: You Guys, It’s Quilting Time

Soooo, if you spend literally 12 straight hours embroidering with six strands of embroidery floss on fabric, when you wake up the next morning your hands will be swollen and you’ll feel like you’ve done weight-lifting reps. Fun times! Not recommended. The problem is when I get focused on something I don’t quit until it’s done and I really wanted this done. So I present to you, not only the embroidered fine print, but the completed top and the whole basted quilt sandwich. Next up, hand quilting! Perhaps when my hands are a normal size again.

Also, re: the embroidery, the original poster had the whole fine print line centered, but I centered the SHIELD logo instead. Because we all know I how I feel about SHIELD. I thought centering it would make it more balanced.

Done deal!

I was like “hey I’m almost done!” And then I realized I had to embroider the entire SHIELD official name. Not so “almost.”

The other half.

Basted and ready!