Epic Embroidery of Evil

Here's a crazy quilt-style embroidery hoop I made for a friend who's really into black metal. It's hard to tell in the photo, but most of the embroidery and trim is silver metallic. Incorporates some old fashioned ribbon embroidery flowers, and  fabric with black metal musicians on it. (Spoonflower is a hell of a place.) My friend was suitably impressed. \m/  >__<  \m/

Another mini collage, this time in a used Altoids tin. I made it for a special someone :)
Fabric, cameo and setting, beads, guitar pick.

Oh Helloween!

Another XXXmas gift I made is this lap quilt for a dear friend whose favorite band is the German power metal pioneers, Helloween.

Again, I used a fabric band flag as the center panel. I had to scour the internet pretty hard to find this one; it's not only vintage, it's also bigger than the standard band flag size so it made a decent sized quilt :)

The technique was identical to the one I used to make the Moonsorrow quilt, as seen in this previous post. Just find a similar themed fabric for the backing, throw on coordinating borders, free motion quilt it with invisible monofil thread, add binding and BAM! A gift that simultaneously makes you warm and cool!  \m/  >_< \m/

Black Arts and Crafts

Up next, a little something I whipped out for an XXXmas present last year....behold the world's first and only (to my knowledge) BLACK METAL PENCIL HOLDERRRRR!

To make it, I used a cardboard snack tin as empty as our bleak existence itself. I took scraps of sufficiently grim and nihilistic fabric, and cut them out into rectangular shapes using a rotary cutter and ruler. I measured the dimensions needed to wrap around the tin, and arranged them on top of fusible webbing in the most depressing configuration. Then I tacked them into place with the iron (using a Teflon cover sheet to protect it.)
After trimming the big rectangle of fused scraps to size, I attached it to the tin by fusing it down with an iron as hot as the flames of burning hellfire. Then I decorated it by gluing on various 3-dimensional collage objects whilst contemplating the futility of it all.

At last, my quick and easy no-sew gift project was ready to hold the implements of doom, when they are not being used to write curses and morbid song lyrics! These make a great gift for everyone on your unholyday list!

LET YOUR FREAK FLAG FLY!

I love to collect printed banner flags of bands I like (because FABRIC!!), but I don't have room to hang them all up. I had a pile of them just sitting around gathering dust, when it occurred to me: KILLER LAP QUILTS! Just add a border to enlarge it a bit and add some contrast. I was able to piece the batting together from large scraps, and fabric off the bolt was just wide enough for the backing. This first one is of my favorite band, MOONSORROW (Finland).

Not gonna lie, I'm pretty stoked about this idea :) They're quick and easy to make, and are perfect for showing off your amazing musical taste while keeping warm on the couch, in the car or at the multi-day music festival! I will put together a tutorial for the sewing challenged, eventually :)

It's the INSANITY QUILT!!

What do you get when you make a Black Metal "crazy quilt"? A 3rd place ribbon at the AAQG quilt show, apparently :)

This is a 12" square block that combines traditional crazy quilting techniques with metal imagery and a limited black, white and silver palette. I used hand embroidery, embellishment, photo printing, and ribbon embroidery over a foundation-pieced background of black silk, satin and velvet fabrics. Most of the beads and decorations were found on Etsy. The photo is of the Norwegian black metal band Immortal, on printable fabric. I sewed this mostly on my breaks at work, over a few months. I'm really happy with the result, and I guess the judges were too! I don't think I would ever make a full sized one though....that would be INSANITY!

EMBROIDERMETALMATION is sweeping the nation!

Sometimes, the universe just randomly combines a few of your favorite things. Case in point: this EMBROIDERED video by British heavy metal band Throne. Over 3000 drawings were first animated in Flash, then converted to digital (machine) embroidery. That's 12 frames/embroideries per second!

THRONE - 'THARSIS SLEEPS' (OFFICIAL VIDEO) from Nicos Livesey on Vimeo.

And as an added bonus, they are selling the individual frames here!

They see me Trollin'

In addition to quilts, I enjoy making plush dolls and animals. Not too long ago, I finished a cute troll doll that I had been working on sporadically for over a year. I had found this baby yeti pattern by the talented Jennifer Carson, and thought it would be a good place to start. I modified it a bit to add the tail and other details. He has jointed limbs, and the "hair" is real Tibetan lambskin mohair.

As I worked on him, I thought he was starting to resemble the bass player for Finntroll (another one of my favorite bands) so I decided to make him into a heavy metal troll :)

I got a denim doll's jacket and cut off the sleeves, and sewed a Finntroll patch to the back. I made a tiny spiked bracelet for him and (this is my favorite part!) added a talking doll voice box with 10 seconds of recordable audio-so of course he sings part of a Finntroll song!

And even better, Finntroll came to my area on tour in December, and I got to meet them! They thought my lil troll was pretty cool :) How awesome is it when you can have fun making something, and more fun later showing it off!

PINCUSHIONS OF DOOM!!!

Now that my class is over, I'm finally able to get back to making some of my own projects I have been itching to do for a while- like these most grim and frostbitten of pincushions!
Using this tutorial, I made them with mason jars and skull and skeleton fabric, and filled them with an assortment of black buttons. Then I added a few skull and bones decorations and a white guitar pick to each jar.
I was lucky to find the black pleather eyelet trim in just the right width, by the yard at Joann fabrics.
The skull pins were made by snipping off the bead ends of stickpins, and gluing on a tiny skull bead.
I have a couple listed in my Etsy  \m/  >_<  \m/

photos by Ronnie Williford

PLUSHKLOK

Deviantart user GrungeIndiani has made this excellent set of poseable Dethklok soft sculptures! Aside from being hilarious, the animated Metalocalypse show is partly responsible for my love of metal and I have always wished Cartoon Network would have put out more merchandise from it. More photos reenacting scenes from the show are in her gallery. Well done!

yep, that about sums it up.....

Two of my favorite things in the whole world are 1) music, especially the heavy metal kind; and 2) cuteness, especially the Japanese kind. As unlikely as it seems, someone has seen fit to combine them with this Hello Kitty/ KISS fabric line. Now this is a mashup I can get behind! This panel and several other coordinating fabrics can be found on equilter.

Apocalypse Wow!

A UK quilter by the name of Ferret makes some amazing art quilts, some of them based on photographs- like this one of Perttu Kivilaakso, cello player for the great Finnish symphonic metal band Apocalyptica.
You can see more of her work on her website, Ferret Fabrications.

I'm dreaming....of a BLACK CHRISTMAS!!!

So last year after Christmas, I happened to find this black pre-lit tree on sale super cheap, and couldn't pass it up. I haven't had a tree of my own since I moved away from home 20+ years ago, so I've had lots of fun all year coming up with ideas for the 1st annual BLACK CHRISTMAS!

My first idea was to take a few heavy metal patches I have been collecting, and turn them into quilted ornaments! (I figure I'm kind of past the age where I can get away with wearing them on a grungy denim vest....) They turned out pretty cool! I am working on a tutorial for these, so stay tuned.

Then around Halloween, I happened to see a big plastic chain decoration, and realized it would make a great "metal" garland for the tree! Can't wait for next fall to roll around and see what other cool items can be found.

Finally, this weekend I put it all together while listening to a playlist I made of metal covers of Christmas songs! It's fairly poppy with Twisted Sister etc, but super fun. Here's a link in case you want to check it out (may contain a bit of NSFW language ;)

This is something I'll keep adding to every year. Next I need to make a black tree skirt!

another Metal quilter

San Franciso-based quilter Ben Venom makes spectacular quilts from old heavy metal t-shirts- including the biggest quilt I have ever seen! It measures 13 X 15 FEET and is made from over 125 shirts. His work has appeared in art shows and magazines around the world. You can see more on his site here!

New York knitter Karabouts has made some grim and frostbitten amigurumi dolls! Check out the adorable corpsepainted black metal guitarist, bearded Viking and more at her website!

THE MOST EPIC AND BRUTAL OF WAR QUILTS

I made this quilt as a gift for another one of my favorite bands, SABATON. They're a metal band from Sweden and their songs are about war and history. I found some really great fabrics for this: a panel with combat silhouettes, bordered with camouflage guitar necks and a backing of camo pinup girls! I gave it to them when they played Emo's in Austin last year. Props to Jude Hubbard for the "bus blankies" idea!

BAGNAROK!

Welcome to the Quiltocalypse!!
Here I will present the best in alternative quilting and crafts, interspersed with random cuteness.

Let's start with a heavy metal tote bag I made using 2 backpatches of one of my favorite bands, Finntroll (Scandinavian folk metal). I used black cotton duck canvas to match the weight of the patches. It has a lining and studded black pleather handles, which I was amased to find by the yard at Joann Fabrics. I was pretty happy with how it came out, considering it was my first bag and I was kind of making it up as I went. If I make any more I will be sure to post a tutorial!