Urban Threads Love - the one where amy can't follow instructions

i'm really bad about blogging machine embroidery projects, mostly because i usually do pretty simple ones. take a towel and embroider a design on it? boring! usually i only bother to blog if it's a design i digitized myself, or if it's part of a larger project. and let's be honest - there are so many projects that i haven't gotten around to blogging, embroidery or not!


so you may not have heard me rave about an embroidery design company that i'm a big fan of, Urban Threads. they just had their 4th anniversary, and i'm pretty proud to say that i've been a big fan for almost that long. they make high quality machine embroidery, hand embroidery and digital stock art designs that cover a huge spectrum, but generally tend to be things that you won't find from most machine embroidery companies. skulls, roller derby, geeky, trendy, steampunk, etc, etc.


a little while ago, UT announced a new contest, using a free design that they're offering on their site. they always have at least one free design, and they have contests all the time, but i especially liked the thought behind this one. people tend to think that their customers are all young people, because they make really funky designs, but their customers actually range in age quite dramatically. they have a huge following among funky grandmas! so this design states "It's not about Age, it's about Attitude", and they've asked people to embroider it, take a picture of themselves holding it, and submit it, along with their age.



i've been thinking about modern quilting a lot lately, and about how awesome my guilds are, so i naturally started thinking about how the design was perfect for modern quilters. i think one thing modern quilters have in common is that they don't always feel welcome in more traditional guilds, and that really boils down to different perspective, or attitudes. i really love how both of my guilds have such a great variety of ages and experience levels!


i decided to take the design and make a totebag out of it. i was originally thinking that it would be a fabulous door prize, but my mom has already claimed the bag - sorry guys!


for one side, i stitched out the design onto grey twill in three shades of grey thread. then i added a slightly wonky log cabin around it, in different grey solids (all kona, fyi).



for the other side, i wanted to make a modern block, so i improv pieced a rectangle.



i pieced both sides until they were 13.5" wide, then joined them together into a long strip about 31" long. i folded that strip in half, sewed up the sides and boxed the corners. the bag ended up being about 13" tall, 9.5" wide and 3" deep.



i decided to add a pocket, because apparently all tote bags need pockets. i had this strip of pieced scraps that i'd trimmed from the outside, so i incorporated it into the pocket as well.



the straps are quite long, because i thought the straps were too short on the last tote that i made. i generally carry totes in addition to my purse, so i prefer it if they hang a bit lower. you can see here the difference in length between the two totes.




i had the bag finished in plenty of time for the contest. i even had my mom take a picture of me with the bag, in plenty of time.



but then i realized that i was supposed to be doing the rocker hand or a thumbs up in picture. so i asked the fabulous Carol to take a picture of me and the bag at the last FVMQG meeting. except that i somehow thought that i was supposed to make a peace sign in the photo.

urgh! and the ridiculous thing is that as she was taking the picture, i was thinking "god, i feel like a tourist. i wish i could just do a thumbs up or something" gah!



now i have this awesome picture that Carol took, but i still didn't have a picture for the contest.



so here's a less exciting picture that i took this afternoon, complete with the dirty railing of my patio. i probably should've washed that......




in other news, the goal for tonight was to get caught up on e-mails, blog comments, etc, but i've just been informed that someone is coming first thing in the morning to tear up my kitchen floor (remember how it flooded back in november? i hate my strata), so i'll be clearing out the kitchen tonight instead.

so that goal has been moved to tomorrow, since i'm assuming i'll be stuck at home supervising anyway. if i owe you a reply, and you haven't gotten one by tomorrow evening, please nag me about it! i'm not ignoring you, i promise, i just get distracted and/or overwhelmed and then it get buried in my inbox.

Are You Someone Who? Queer East Van Bingo Quilt

the flowers from opening night are pretty much dead, so i should probably get around to blogging about my bingo quilt. i posted last week about folks helping me finish it and stuff, and i had intended to blog about the quilt really soon after that, but every time i sit down at the computer i get sucked into reading more and more previous posts of thebloggess.com. (i'm at page 105 now and i can't stop! the way she writes is exactly how my head works, it's like she's in my brain!)

i explained in the previous post that this quilt was a piece for the Queer Arts Festival Curated Visual Arts Exhibition. this year's theme was Games People Play, which was an awesome theme, and some really amazing pieces were created based on it.

i'm going to copy and paste my artist's statement here, which is a lot longer than i thought it was, so feel free to skim it if you'd like.

or, if you're one of the people who vehemently hate my lack of capitalization on this blog, you might want to read it over and over again, cause in a rare fit of appropriateness, i actually capitalized letters in it.

artist bio
Amy Dame combines art and craft to create pieces that illustrate their experiences as a queer and genderqueer person with disabilities, the beliefs and political views that guide their life, and the experiences of people around them. Primarily fibre based, Amy’s work regularly incorporates hand and machine embroidery, machine piecing, quilting and appliqué. Amy is inspired by words and imagery not generally expressed in traditional fibre work, and believes that the act of illustrating our stories in time consuming mediums such as embroidery or quilting reflects and respects the true value of the experiences of our community.

artist's statement
Are You Someone Who? East Van Bingo combines the time honoured tradition of signature quilts with the ubiquitous Bingo icebreaker to create a modern form of an art quilt.

Signature or album quilts were historically made as gifts when respected leaders, such as teachers or ministers, moved on to a new posting. Blocks of the quilt were signed by church or community members, and reflected the time the recipient spent in their community. This quilt illustrates a specific time period of East Van community, with an emphasis on the experiences of the artist’s generation.

The other aspect of the piece is a variation of the Bingo game that we have all played at meeting after meeting. Usually tailored towards the theme of the gathering, statements printed in the squares reflect experiences of the participants, and attendees are asked to find people who fit each statement and then have them sign their name on the block as a way to break the ice and encourage familiarity.

In this case, audience members are invited to sign their name to any and all squares that they identify with. They are free to sign as many or as few blocks as they wish, and to use whichever names they are most comfortable signing with.

It will be interesting to see which blocks attract the most signatures, and which blocks the audience members are most comfortable identifying with. Though the majority of the blocks invoke familiarity, nostalgia and laughter, some of them may be viewed as embarrassing or shameful. It is important to include these aspects of our community, even some that may be considered negative, to ensure that our history is portrayed honestly and respectfully.





the specifics - all the fabric on the front is Kona cotton in white and black. the bingo letters are reverse appliqued using wonderunder, and all of the writing on the blocks was digitized and then machine embroidered. the embroidery was done with standard sewing polyester thread, because i didn't want the sheen of embroidery thread. the centre square, which took me forever to design and digitize, is based on this vancouver public art piece, which is actually based on an old gang symbol that has been in use in east van dating back to the 1940s/50s. the quilt is backed in black and white polka dot cotton voile, with a bit of black and white striped voile along one side. it currently isn't quilted - after the show is over, i'm going to undo the basting stitches and sandwich it properly so that it can be quilted. i was originally going to quilt it before the show, but i needed it to be a flat, smooth surface for people to write on, so i changed my mind.





the quilt has 24 blocks with statements written on them, and a smaller companion piece that reads
"Are You Someone Who..."
"grab a pen and . sign as many
or as few of the squares that
describe you. use your real
name, a fake name, your
drag name or your alter ego’s
name, just sign."
the companion piece doesn't hang the way i wanted it to.. which is irritating. but i'll fix it later.




the 24 blocks are:
B
- went to rock for choice at the cultch
- remembers when Tegan and Sara were Sara and Tegan, cute little baby dykes with acoustic guitars (it still trips me out when non-vancouverites/non-albertans know who tegan and sara are. weird!)
- has been part of a collective or consensus based group
- is poly or is consciously monogamous
- owns a pair of skinny jeans

I
- voted for Libby Davies
- moved to Montreal or Toronto for a “change of pace”
- has hosted a potluck
- has thought seriously about your gender identity
- owns a full set of leathers

N
- is vegan or vegetarian
- has an account on superdyke, plentyoffish or okcupid
- east van cross!
- has filled a stamp card at womyns’ ware (local sex store - link NSFW!)
- knows the best friend of the ex girlfriend of the casual partner of the last person you slept with

G
- knows how to repair your own bicycle
- has met a lover, one night stand, john, friend with benefits or future partner via craigslist
- has lived in a communal house with its own name
- has made their own sex toys
- wears a hanky and actually knows what you’re flagging (basic hanky code, an updated version than i love)

O
- has lived in more than 5 apartments or houses in east van
- protested during the Olympics
- has gone weeks without leaving East Van
- has been to a dance party in a completely inaccessible space like the Anza, the Legion or the Secret Location and thought nothing of it
- has been to Michfest or Camp Trans (michfest is an annual event called michigan womyn's music festival that only allows cisgendered women to attend, and camp trans is an annual event that protests MWMF's transphobia and creates a welcoming community near the MWMF site)

it was really really hard to narrow down to 24! a few of my others were: feels as comfy at the Wise Hall as you do in your own home, has dated/slept with/played with/etc a librarian, has performed drag, and has marched in the dyke march, but honestly, i could've made 3 quilts and still have more statements to use.





the quilt was a big hit on opening night, and the opening night Art Party was a big hit on it's own. this year Pride in Art organized two art shows for the Queer Art Show, the curated show that I was in, and the non-themed community art show, so the Art Party was HUGE! i've been going on opening night for many years now, and there's never been that many people. someone said something about 300 people, and i'd totally believe it. it was really overwhelming! i went back on a later night to actually check out the other pieces, because there was no way that i could actually concentrate with that many people around me. my family came, including my totally sleep deprived dad who'd just arrived home that morning, my mom and her best friend, my sister, and my also sleep deprived little brother, who'd also arrived home that morning, his girlfriend, and some of my dearest chosen family members, including my friend J, who i've posted about before, and my best friend K and his partner. both my parents and my little sister got me flowers, and my mom wrote me a super sweet note from her and my dad, and i was so so happy that i was finally able to introduce J to my family. it was a really good night.

Days 3, 4 and 5, update! (lace wings, rice krispies and balsa wood)

i've been working at the 30 Days Of Creativity challenge, but most of the stuff i've made had to dry overnight, needed a last finishing touch, etc, so i'm a bit behind in actually posting.


on Friday, day 3, i made super cool free standing lace wings. aren't they awesome? the pattern is from Urban Threads. i made them pink, to match a skirt, which i didn't actually finish in time.... but they matched my tights just as well!

they're stitched onto washaway stabilizer, and after they stitch out, i rinse them in warm water to disolve the stabilizer. i usually lay fsl out on a towel or wash cloth to absorb the moisture.



each wing takes over an hour to stitch out, and for the first one, i only used one layer of stabilizer, and it wasn't enough, and the stitching got a bit stretched. however, i was not willing to start all over again! after the wings dried, i used the same embroidery thread to hand tack the background and the border together.



i got my sister to pin them on my shirt in position, and then i basted them down by hand. fun! i want to make them in every colour of the rainbow!


(blurry, i know, but shouldn't magic be blurry anyways?)


on saturday, day 4, i made vegan, gluten free rice crispie cake. yum! i can't remember where i saw it, but i read about vegan rice crispie cake a few months ago and got it in my head to make it for a party. i have a lot of friends and aquaintances who are vegan or veggie, so i'm used to that, but gluten free was more intimidating for me (thought it ended up being no problem at all). i didn't actually go to that party (i got my days mixed up and missed it!), but saturday night was a housewarming for many of the same people, so it was a good excuse to use the supplies i bought. i used Nature's Path Brown Rice Crispies, Dandie's Vegan Marshmallows (they totally taste the same!!), Earth Balance vegan buttery spread (that shit is so awesome for baking), and a teensy bit of vanilla, homemade with vanilla beans and vodka. all organic, except for the vodka and vanilla!



i made a couple of little flags to label them. simple but effective.



and today, day 5, i finished a birthday card that i've been working on for the past few days. i've posted before about the fabulous sewing lounge and fabric store that my friends Lili and Henry opened last year. this weekend was Spool of Thread's 1st Birthday! yayy!!!

so i made them a card, and took it in today to deliver it, and picked up fabric for a guild project. and i ate a few mini cupcakes, they were awesome!



the card is a piece of balsa wood painted with jacquarde neopaque paint (i love jacquarde paints, their lumiere line in particular is gorgeous). i sketched out the birthday cake on some scrap paper, and then transferred the outlines to wonder under. i ironed each piece onto a fabric scrap, cut out the shapes, peeled off the backing, and ironed them onto the balsa wood. i added some machine stitching for details and defining, and typed Happy Birthday with my typewriter before stitching down the little piece of vintage graph paper.




and that's my days 3, 4 and 5! i haven't decided what to make tomorrow.... do i work on a larger project, or make something small that i can finish and post pictures of? we'll have to see.

Quilted Patchwork Scarves!

i have a few more valentine's projects in the works, and hopefully i'll be able to post them soon, but for the timing being, i'm excited to be able to post these! one of them was a gift, so i couldn't post it until i got my ass in gear and mailed it. i posted a few teaser shots last month, but the actual mailing part didn't happen until last week... what with my organizational issues and all!

so. this all started with the october VMQG challenge, which i posted about here. perhaps fittingly, since i was so super gung ho about it, i was one of the people who won blocks! huraay!!

i think i was the 3rd or the 4th person to win and choose their blocks, so i ended up with a quite a varied assortment. but i did manage to snag 4 similar blocks made by one of the guild members, Ronda, and i immediately knew that i'd have to think of a fabulous project to use them for.

i decided that a scarf would be the perfect use for them, and went on a search to find fabric to use with them. i really really wanted to find more of the small black and white damask, but i didn't have any luck. (do you know who made it? i can't even find it online, cause i don't know what to search for!)

i ended up with this fun black and white bubble print, and purchased a small piece of a gorgeous purple fleece to be the backing.

i wanted to keep with ronda's design of the visible seams, so when i added the bubble fabric to create the length of the scarf, i sewed them with the seams on the outside.


after i'd sewn the scarf length together, i laid it out, wrong sides together, in the centre of the fleece strip, and pinned it all together. i did a bunch of free motion stitching, with lots of hearts and swirls, straight stitching within the blocks, and then trimmed the fleece to match the cotton after i'd finished.






and this is what i ended up with! i love it!




i did learn a lesson though - even when the fabric won't shrink, it's a good idea to prewash it anyway - see how the purple fleece stained my sewing machine?!


you can really see the difference if you look at where the sticker was!




if you remember the quilts i made for the christmas bureau, you'll remember that i backed 3 or the 4 of them with fleece. i had a small piece of the brown fleece left, and realized that it was the perfect colour for my friend angie.

i dug through my stash, looking for brown prints that had a hint of orange or yellow in them, and pulled out what i found. they were all pretty small pieces, so i took them with me to a few stores, and added two more prints. i really wanted to find colours that matched her awesome hair, which is multiple shades of light brown and gold.



i sewed angie's scarf with the same exposed seams, because i know she likes that look.




because i didn't have the full 60" width of the fleece left, to make a scarf that could be wrapped around a few times, i cut off one end of what i did have, and sewed it back on, leaving a gap in the centre of the seam. when i pieced together the cotton fabrics, i left the same gap. i laid the two pieces on top of each other, matching up the gaps, and topstitched around them, creating a slit in the scarf to slip the other end through.



i did less complicated quilting on angie's, just lines in several different machine stitch patterns, but i still loved how it turned out. after i'd finished the quilting, i trimmed the fleece like i did for mine, and then i decided to zigzag around the edges. i was really happy with how it turned out, and apparently so was she!





oh, and i handstitched a little label on the back, just a machine embroidered "xo, amy".

no round up, i'm afraid!

i was thinking of doing a round up of the past year's projects, much like i did for 2008 (though apparently i skipped 2009), and i started realizing how many things i never got around to posting here... oops! that should be my new year's resolution, to actually post stuff that i make!

i'll try to catch up a bit - now that my apartment/studio is finally CLEAN(ish), i actually have a free area to hang small quilts to photograph them and such, so hopefully it'll be easier to keep up this year.

in the meantime, i thought i'd post a few snippets of things i've been working on - the ones i actually photographed, of course! there are a few embroidery projects as well, and another paperpiecing project... oh, and ridiculous amounts of button sorting, when i feel too crappy to do anything else.

a little bit of scrappy browns


a few hearts (these took me soooo much longer than i'd expected, but they're so cute!)


and lovely purple freemotion quilting


and i figured out how to make stamps in photoshop! i'm so bad with photoshop - i adore it, but i can really only do the basics.

i embroidered the words with my new elna 8300 and then scanned them. i scanned some ephemera, including the blue library card to use as the backdrop, and popped the embroidery on top. and then i found this awesome star on a 1950-60s kids playing card. i cleaned up and turned it into a stamp! two stamps, actually, one leaning left and one leaning right. i was really proud of my little invitation!

nevermind the black, how about some pink?

i mentioned the other day that i was working on a project in a very non-amy dame colour scheme, and i thought i'd interrupt the halloween love that i've been posting (and will continue to post) to show you.

other canadians are probably familiar with the United Way, though i'm not sure if they exist in the states as well. basically they're a big charity. they raise money, and then distribute it to community projects and programs. personally, i'm not a huge fan of them, because i've worked non-profits, and know what a freaking hassle it is to jump through the rings that the United Way creates for even small amounts of funding, but they do provide easy ways for people to donate who wouldn't otherwise, and there's definitely value in that (i just think it's better to donate directly), and they do provide funding for really vital community programs. (though your definitions of vital may be different than theirs)

every fall they have a huge campaign in workplaces across the country that involves signing people up to donate through their payroll system and a whole bunch of fundraising within the workplace. my office does a giant book sale, bake sales, random activities, a silent auction, etc, but the big thing that everyone loves is the basket raffle. a group of people or a section of the workplace gets together and picks a theme and gathers up fun things to put in a basket, then everyone buys tickets and puts their tickets in the baskets that they really want to win. people do sports themes, scratch&win trees, christmas themes, etc. the alcohol baskets used to be hugely popular, but the provincial fundraising rules have changed around that, so we can't have booze or booze gift certificates anymore. sometimes people just pool their money and rather than buying a bunch of stuff to fill a basket, they buy one big ticket item, like an xbox or a wii.

this year my work area decided to do two baskets, one tea/coffee themed, and the other breast cancer awareness themed, since it's october.

i wanted to contribute, but i know that a lot of the "pink" products out there don't actually raise much, if any, money for cancer research. and besides that, i also wanted to do something that wasn't just a generic item with a pink ribbon slapped onto it.

so i made a pillow. and i really like how it turned out, even if it's not my usual style!

i remembered seeing quilting fabric with pink ribbons on it, so i went searching for that. i tried a few local quilting shops with no luck, and ended up at fabricland, where i found 3 prints, ranging in price from $5 to $18 a metre. i totally lucked out in that the $5 print was the one i liked best! i carried it around with me, gathering up other pinks. it was harder than i'd expected, actually, peachy pink shades aren't super popular right now, but i managed to find enough to have some variety in my pillow.

i started with this breast cancer awareness embroidery design that was a freebie from embroidery library last october (they have a different freebie this year).



after i'd stitched that (on preshrunk twill that was in my stash - i prefer not to preshrink when i'm quilting, but you have to if you're embroidering), i laid the fabrics out next to it to decide on their order, then cut strips of varying widths and sewed them around the embroidery log cabin courthouse steps style.



i sandwiched together the pillow top, some cotton batting, and a backing fabric and quilted twice on each strip, a bit in from the seam on each side. i ended up with an extra strip that didn't fit once i started sewing, so i used it for a piping style trim around the pillow. the back was just a standard envelope style pillow backing, made out of the ribbon print fabric.




in addition to the pillow, i decided to do some free standing lace (fsl) designs for the basket as well.

i found this ribbon design from embroidery library, and stitched up a few in pink to use as ornaments.



i also found this design, which is actually intended to be a bracelet (child size, given my hoop limitations), but i decided to make it into a bookmark instead.



after i'd stitched it all out, i found matching embroidery floss in my stash and made tassels for each end of it. once again, not my style at all, but i really like how it turned out.



(you might have noticed that i'm a bit obsessed with fsl at the moment!)

so that's what i did for the basket. my coworkers were all super impressed with everything, especially the pillow, though of course, when it came to decide on a value for it to include in the basket listing, they had no concept of the actual value of an item that isn't factory sweatshop made. not unexpected, unfortunately!



i also made something fun for the coffee/tea basket, and i'll post that soon as well.

batlove!

i'm working on a couple halloween projects right now, and they're all in varying stages of completion.

but! today a new group was started on flickr for bat crafts, and i realized that there were some bat-themed projects that i'd never posted here.

last year i machine embroidered bat necklaces for myself and for a friend, using the free standing lace design from urban threads.


and i think i did post this pendant, which i made using a fsl design from embroidery library. it was one of the ones i made for a pendant swap on craftster.


but i'm certain i never posted this, because i made this costume many years ago... for halloween 2004 i was a bat! it was totally a fun costume. i made hairfalls and batwings, and a little headpiece to wear.

the wings were made out of vinyl, and they held up super well.

in progress


complete


a closeup of the little vinyl headpiece, with ears and a widow's peak -


and the yarn hair falls






my hair was longer then, so i could put it into little ponytails/buns to attach the hair falls to. they were made out of 2 or 3 different types of yarn, black gimp, black pony beads, black bat rings, and rubber bats that i drilled holes into. the hair falls were so awesome to dance with - it's been so long since i've had long hair, i forgot how fun it is while you're dancing!