Here's how my quilt is coming along. I believe I last left you with a whole bunch of cut out squares. I additionally cut out measured rectangles of elephant fabric, and then sewed columns of fabric together to form 9 long strips (5 of which were long gray only rectangles, and the other 4 comprised of diff fabrics). I pinned strips together before sewing to make sure rectangles were parallel - I've just pinned on a gray strip above, and will sew along my fabric pencil line leaving about 1cm of seam.
I credit 2 sources for my sewing know-how. First my Mom (thanks Mom!) who has sewn stuff up for me from Japanese stuffed animal kits to a high school formal forest-green velvet dress. She had me machine sewing easy stuff from a wee age - following old school tissue paper patterns as well as improvising our own; and blind-stitch hand-hemming - which is incredibly useful for a short person like myself. Second, in Home Economics class, (British, Hong Kong) middle school - boys and girls learned to machine sew and dye stuff.
Since then, I've partaken in a plethora of sewing experiments of my own, such as clothes (I quickly learned that it is much easier and funner to shop for clothes), animal-themed costumes for museums/Halloween, and art projects such as the Tree Hopper (circa 2004) below, which you may have seen before.
Tree Hopper is approx 4' x 4' x 8', sewn on an ancient Singer with 2 stitches - straight and zigzag, and made of hand-dyed and airbrushed cotton canvas, industrial yellow vinyl, cotton cord for wing veins and internal plastic tubing for structure. Can I say, it was a pain in the butt to stuff this thing under the sewing machine arm. It only worked out because I had the distraction of Harry Potter Audio Books to keep me going - that plus Michigan snow kept me indoors. Anyways, minus all the stuffing, which I donated to the UMichigan Art Dept for re-use, Tree Hopper now fits nicely in a large box in our pantry. It was way too much work to just toss, but what does one do with a deflated giant Tree Hopper carcass?
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