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/

Going way back to last Xmas now, I made this as a gift for a friend. Nightmare before Christmas panel lap quilt with Jack Skellington Halloween fabric on the back. Gotta love the fake, printed borders! :D

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

That's how I Troll

I finally made a quilt for myself! I used a Finntroll band flag as the center panel, and a green nature/leaf batik for the borders and back. Quilted with a large, simple allover design, I then went back and stitched along the outlines of the logo after this picture was taken.
I'll keep it in my car as a lap blanket during our brutal 6-week Texas winter :)

Pencil Holder of the Gods

I fabric collaged a Norse mythology pencil holder using an empty tea tin. Vikings, trolls, ravens, runes....it's like a desktop mini-Valhalla!
The fabric was attached with heat fusible web. turns out you can iron it onto metal- who knew?? (pro tip: don't try to hold a piece of metal while you're ironing it!)
Finished with glued on embellishments. quick, simple and fun. Not all fabric projects have to be sewn!

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!

Epic Chair Do-over

Time to catch up on some old posts!
I'm still rockin' the sewing machine; just been keeping a low profile :)

First up, check out this chair makeover I did. A sad old office chair X some amazing Alexander Henry Japanese tattoo fabric = an easy and impressive project!
I (mostly) followed this tutorial; results may vary depending on the individual chair shape.
Best part, you can be less than perfect on the seat bottom, since no one will see it :)

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!