This may be of no interest to most of you, but with all the comments I got on my Impala portraits, I thought this would be of interest to some of you.
Original Photo
This is the original photo I used--it's of a fan car ("Night Moves") that was at Denver con 2022. What a great photo!
Posterize
In Photoshop, I posterize the photo to get chunkier blocks of color. I just play with the number of levels until I get a good representation.
Draw Lines
I place the posterized image in Illustrator (reversed) and then go to town drawing lines. The rule for pieced quilting is that every line you draw must go all the way until it hits another line. So for the first couple of lines, they go all the way from one end of the photo to the other.
I just keep drawing until I get something like this.
Paint the Pieces with Color
I bring the outlines into Photoshop so I can paint each individual piece with a solid color that will match the (future) fabric. Sometimes posterizing can result in dark colors, so you have some creative liberty to make changes. Note that these are still just screen colors; the actual fabric will differ again.
Outlines:
Colored:
Number the Sewing Order
Paper piecing means that you sew through the paper and fabric. That way, you can be sure to place your seam perfectly.
Generally, in quilting, you want to sew a seam from one end to the other without running into any already sewn seams. For a traditional patchwork, this means you would sew 10 blocks, then sew a row of 5 blocks, and then sew another row of 5 blocks onto the first row.
Paper piecing is the same, but because no "block" is repeated, it's an exercise to determine the sewing order of each block, and then the sewing order of the blocks to each other.
A quilt like the Impala has a few hundred blocks of 1-15 pieces of fabric each. Within each block, the sewn size is near perfect. But sewing the blocks to each other introduces a lot of variability: the seams can be wider or narrower, or the alignment can be off. That's why the actual quilt looks "wonky" compared to the pattern. It's just not possible--for me--to get it perfect. If I didn't work so small, it would be easier.
Back in Illustrator:
You can see that the black lines are pieces within a block. The red lines are blocks. And the green lines are sections of blocks. It all needs to be sewn in order. I will make small changes to the sewing lines at this stage to "make it sewable."
Printing
Because printers aren't the best at replicating onscreen colors exactly (good luck telling the difference between black and dark purple), I have to recolor it to "printable" colors and then do a swatch concordance.
The bright green on the left actually represents lavender.
I print the pattern out on vellum, which is more durable than paper. Since this is 17" x 17", I will print out overlapping 8 1/2" x 11" sheets. Illustrator has a good printing function, so you can print the exact area you want.
Pick Fabric
I have collected a ridiculous amount of fabric. These want solids for the most part. Sometimes it's a challenge getting 5 shades of blue, or 6 beiges for their faces, so sometimes, I make color errors that I don't discover until later. Painful mistake. The above pattern uses 25 colors, but some of the faces use around 40.
Sew
This is a really challenging project. It would be easier if it were bigger! The pieces are so small, and when you start sewing blocks together, the layers get to be ridiculously thick with all the seam allowances. It's a true challenge to feed through the machine. Use a small stitch length; use a good machine with dual feed (Bernina!!! or maybe Pfaff).
Check out the back side of the previous Impala quilt.
I pull out the paper as I go, otherwise it will get accidentally sewn in.
Finishing
I don't do complicated quilting here. The piecing is what's on show! I embroidered the Chevrolet and the license plate lettering. Some things are really too small to piece.
Original Photo Again:
Conclusion
I think anyone could do this, in theory. It takes a lot of patience. And your sewing machine needs to be quality. And it helps to know how to use Photoshop and Illustrator. And you need to "get it" when numbering the pattern, in a mathematical way. And it's helpful owning all the fabric.
If you do try it, make a larger quilt; this size with this level of detail is crazy making.
Check out all my supernatural quilts on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/catnipster69/
I’ve been at this since like September. Originally the plan was to do five panels but by the time I reached three I realized it was absolutely going to be too heavy. If the back bothers me then I’ll just buy some black fabric and sew it on.
I pinned it excessively since I have been warned the feathers won’t flatten unless blocked aggressively. They still don’t behave themselves 100% but again, if it bothers me I’m willing to steam block it in the future. Super fun before and after pics.
Pattern is of course the feathered wings shawl by my favorite pattern designer craftyintentions.
One of my biggest projects - an entire Hydrapple, with all the syrpents included! There's toothpicks in the main head's horns for rigidity, while every syrpent has armature wire inside them for poseability. And...
...that includes the two tail syrpents! All six syrpents other than the main one are completely removable along with the apple top, which has little hooks to hold it in place when it's on there. The apple base also has a plastic pot inside it, to help it hold all that weight.
The one thing they can't do is fold the bonus heads flat against the apple like the ingame model does, but they can get... some of the way there? although it does require something of a Noodle Vortex on the inside for all those tails to still fit in the apple.
Very proud of these good apple noodle friends and how well they turned out!
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my commissions are open - see my pinned post for more info.
(I don't offer things this big and elaborate (yet...?), but I can make you something simpler!)
Sewing progress from March...I will try to describe this in more detailed posts later, since I have like 250 photos from March alone (and like 200gb of footage but that is another story).
Originally started in October but didn't make much progress until this month, was busy with other things.
Still haven't made as much progress as I'd like, but I do like how it is coming along! Many fun textures.
Apologies to those who are waiting for the finished piece from this post. I had to put it aside for a moment to focus on creating gifts for my loved ones' birthdays that are coming up. So instead of the end result of the previous project, here is another work in progress - it's going to be a space-themed wall hanging! My boyfriend's workspace and taste are very celestial, and we both love stargazing and moon worship. I will publish the finished version as well once it's displayed ✨🌙
I designed and crocheted a trans pride jumper! It still needs to be steam blocked but it's so comfy and soft and ahhhhhh
Am I wearing it to conservative family dinner tonight? Yeah I am. Is the one (1) openly queer cousin gonna clock me on sight? Also yes. Will it be worth it?
Probably.
Jumper pattern forthcoming, just gotta give it one more read!
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