Monday, April 25, 2011

love is... sacrificing my Viewmaster fabric

Hands up if you remember this nauseating naked couple in the 'love is' cartoon panels.
Yick.
(What were they doing naked by the watercooler? If they're naked, then where are their 'bits'? How can something so un-human-looking actually be recognisable as a human? I actually found a fan site for this comic where someone had drawn clothes on them, which looks even stranger.)
My childhood self was particularly struck by a fridge magnet (where? certainly not my house) that said "love is... letting him grow a beard". It was a glimpse into a world where adults were not mere founts-of-all-knowledge-discipline-food-and-shelter, and called Mum and Dad, but they actually had multi-dimensional relationships with each other. Weird.
This is love:
Yes. Real love is taking your precious half-metre of Melody Miller Ruby Star Rising Viewmaster fabric and making it into a padded laptop sleeve, at the request of your husband, who is going to New York and leaving you alone with three children for ten days over Easter and school holidays.
This is also love:
sitting on fabric I plan to use for my quilt backing, see further below
My precious real Viewmaster from childhood. My bigger boys have had supervised access to it, and fortunately Clem is yet to discover it.
A bit of detail about the laptop sleeve. I started with an online tutorial, but messed up pretty quickly and had to wing it from there.

I used two layers of cotton quilt batting, and flannelette for the lining. But I got ahead of myself and quilted that all together in panels for front, back and flap before realising I then could not do a turn-inside-out neat lined finish. So the interior has pinked seams (looks fine actually) and I finished the opening with some homemade bias trim.
old button from my stash. I'm not entirely sure what's in focus here, if anything
In other sewing... my La La Log Cabin quilt top is finished. I suspect that was the fun part over with. 
I am generally pleased, although I'd avoid anything really white if I did it over. I kind of dig the haphazardness of it and a lot of the scraps remind me of favourite projects.
I have purchased batting. I have enough of the lovely moons fabric (pictured underneath the Viewmaster) for the backing, although it's not wide enough so I will need to rearrange a bit. My plan is to machine quilt in the ditch between the squares, then bind the sucker, then hand-quilt within the squares, with care, persistence and patience, hahah. And then, I may never quilt again. We'll see.
Any tips for a non-quilter making a quilt?
Any closet 'love is' cartoon fans out there?
Have you ever sacrificed some really, really awesome fabric for someone else, and did they appreciate it?
- Jane x

2 comments:

  1. Wow! I love the quilt and I love, love, love the laptop sleeve. You are one nice wife!

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  2. Giving up your precious View Master fabric to make your husband a laptop sleeve? That is love all right! And I can say that you did a great job in reconstructing the fabric. By the way, it's truly great to see that you're still holding on to your reels. It's great to see the young ones enjoying something you've enjoyed back then. Good job!

    Image3D

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Hey, I would really love to know what you think. Go on!

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