intergalactic transport

chair reupholstery

2012-01-25T14:55:00.000-05:00

i found this chair sitting on the sidewalk when i came to work one day and decided it was too good to pass up. it's a mid-century eero saarinen executive chair knock off. the vinyl upholstery was ripping off and the foam was gnarly, but it had good bones and i thought it would be cool to reupholster. i've never reupholstered anything before, so i knew this was going to be interesting.

the first step was to rip all the nasty vinyl off which turned out o be more of a challenge than i bargained for. it had a gazillion rusted staples in it and i only got half done before i had to give it a rest because i got two blisters.

i went to mood and got a really nice loose weave red canvas that i thought wood look awesome.

the original vinyl cover for the seat back was one piece. i tried to lay the red fabric the same way, and it just wasn't working out. luckily, the real executive chairs have two seams on the arms, so i decided to go that route. i test drove it with brown fabric. this is also the first time i've ever made a pattern by draping!

success! the interior back worked out great. then i had to figure out how to attach the exterior back fabric. the original had this piece of aluminum that crimped the fabric and held it in place, creating a nice "seam" edge. after doing another test or two i realized that the only way i was going to be able to do it was to bite the bullet and find the same kind of aluminum strip.

i found the strip, called "curve ease", from the same place i watched youtube videos on how to reupholster the chair: diyupholsterysupply.com! it's a bendable strip of aluminum that you staple one side, wrap your fabric around the edge, catch it on the barbs, and hammer it closed. that did the trick!

the cushion (i knew) was going to be the trickiest part. the original seat cushion was stapled from the inside. and no matter how i tried (and i tried lots) i couldn't figure out how to do it. i settled on making a u-shaped wood strip that i could attach the fabric and padding to and then nail that to the fiberglass shell. i put the nails in first, then wrapped the fabric, that way i could just hammer the finished cushion in place.

getting close! once the cushion was nailed in all i had to do was wrap the "tongue" flap under the bottom and reattach the base.

oh yeah, baby! i'm sure it's not the best upholstery job in the world, but it's my first attempt (no word yet on wether it will be my last.) i originally thought i would fix it up and then sell it, but i've been wavering a little on that--even though we don't exactly have the room to take on more furniture. for now i guess i'll just enjoy it in my studio.

viewer mail

2012-01-23T08:58:00.000-05:00

i love it when people reach out and post comments or send me emails about what's going on on my blog. after i did the post on how to make bodega bags christine sent me a picture of the brand new bags she made. awesome! they look fantastic!

patrick costello sent this to me about a week ago and i have been loving it. we were actually in a show together last year (though he couldn't make it to the opening), but i just recently got to meet him in person. i really, really like his work. ironically he does a lot of preserving as well, and he sent me a jar of his latest: apple butter with a special printed top. delicious! apple butter always takes me right back to where my family is from. there's a big amish community there and i love going back and eating at das dutchman essenhaus and slathering apple butter on everything.

thanks guys!

shows!

2012-01-20T20:06:00.000-05:00

check it out! i've got two shows going up within a week of each other! the first show is called "border line: the craft of fine art" and opens on jan 27th at the mikhail zakin gallery at the art school at old church in demarest, nj. the curator, john mcgurk, saw my work at the x initiative: byoa event 2 years ago! i guess everything counts--even if you don't think anything came of it. he put together a show of contemporary fine artists using craft as a medium. i've checked out the other artists and i think it's going to be a kick ass show. alicia ross is actually another artist in push: stitchery book that i was in a while ago! the opening reception is feb 2.

when the curator of the rocky mountain quilt museum approached me to be in "out of this world: contemporary star quilts" (i just realized that i never did a post about the show--fuck!) let's start over. i am currently in a show at the rocky mountain quilt museum. they are hosting the traveling show: "stars! a study of 19th century star quilts" and thought it would be a cool idea to have a show running concurrently of contemporary star quilts. irene, the amazing curator there, contacted me and asked if i would include phobos in the show! while we were working out the logistics for that she told me that immediately following that show was a show of quilts by men and that i should send a quilt in for that as well. sooo... if you're in the golden, co area check out "male call: quilts made by men" i won't be able to make it to the opening, but i'm sure it's going to be awesome! the show opens on the 30th and the reception is friday feb 3rd.

website retooling

2012-01-11T11:48:00.000-05:00

while i'm sitting around waiting for lightening to strike in the studio i went ahead and retooled my website a little bit. although i love making the quilts, have been doing it for about 6 years now, and most people know me solely as a quilt maker i wanted to put some stuff up to show the work in context. i posted a gallery of 5 pieces i worked on over a span of 4 years before i started making the quilts. i've always considered myself more of a sculptor than a quilt maker and i view the quilts as sculpture more than just "quilts".

the gallery is of sculpture and site specific installation done in my various studios and living spaces over the years both in brooklyn and chicago. the "grandest" piece is a room that i built to look like a mission control room. it's a piece i made in 2003 shortly before moving to new york. in addition to making the room i wanted to make a video that would show the installation in action. i got my friends to dress up in uniforms i made and filmed them going about their business.

while working on the site i remembered once again how awesome the people over at other peoples pixels are. jenny and brian are fellow saic alum and started doing opp to help their friends out with easy to use and affordable websites for artists to showcase their work. i highly recommend if you're ever in the need of an amazing website thats super easy to use and manage to check these guys out!

and lastly, i'd like to give a shout out and thank you to all the people that have written to me and left encouraging comments about my recent studio frustrations. i know that it's completely natural to be going through this (if totally annoying), and wanted to write the post to show just that--that it happens to everybody. thanks again for your support!

hitting a wall

2012-01-01T13:10:00.000-05:00

it's probably not that great to start off the new year with a downer post, but sometimes that's just the way things work out.

i've been pretty down lately in the studio and feeling listless. in addition to things that i needed to get done, like making new shirts, i've been working on a bunch of other things too. i made the warnings, and had some ideas for other embroidery projects too. one of which is this image of an accurate star field that has been flipped 180 degrees with an additional star added directly in the center called "way home". it would essentially be as if i was looking through space toward planet earth.

someone left this outside of my job and my boss said i could take it home. it's a saarinen knock-off executive chair. it's got great bones to it and i thought i would reupholster it. well, i'm about half way done and whoever upholstered this thing the first time did it with about a million staples and i've got blisters all over my hand from trying to pull them out.

i've also been trying to remake this sweatshirt. it never really fit quite right. i made two attempts with a pattern that i had made, and then i broke down and got a simplicity sweatshirt pattern to make a better pattern out of. still doesn't work. i'm on my 5th attempt and it's super frustrating.

the chair and the sweatshirt are just annoying things that i would be working on anyway that just add to the frustration, but the embroidery projects are different. i'm about a quarter of the way through the star field and i totally don't want to work on it. i was excited about the embroidery projects because it would give me an outlet for other ideas while still continuing with the quilts, but now i'm not so sure. once i've started working on them i've lost interest. i'm starting to think it was just a way for me to stall on working on a quilt. i'm not even sure if i want to still make the quilts at this point.

of course there's other external factors that are tying into this as well. i've got the grad application in and i won't hear back from them until around april. with the likelihood of getting in being low (there's 900 applicants for 35 spots), there's also the consideration that maybe i should just buck up and get a real job; something that's arts related and i could just focus all my energy into that.

i'm all shook up and i don't really know what to do at this point. i called my friend judith and she was really helpful. she reminded me that these things come in cycles, and i have been doing this for a while now (about 6 years). she told me to take a break from the studio and do something else. don't think about art. so, i'm trying to take her advice. maybe this is good and something great will happen for the new year. who knows. guess i'll just have to keep my fingers crossed.

sauerkraut!

2011-12-26T10:05:00.000-05:00

it's pickle time again! this time we're doing sauerkraut. i made a jar of this for my father-in-law for christmas cause he's polish and i thought he might like some homemade kraut.

all you need is:
a jar with a lid
1 head of cabbage (red or green)
3 - 4 tablespoons kosher salt
1 1 gallon ziplock bag

first cut out the core and slice up your cabbage pretty finely. i have a mandolin which makes this part really easy, but you don't need it. i like using red cabbage cause a restaurant i used to work at made it this way, and it looks nice, but green works exactly the same way.

next you're going to sprinkle on the salt. depending on the size of your head of cabbage you might need a little more or a little less. i never really measure the salt when i'm making kraut, just a couple handfuls.

then you're going to beat the shit out of it. mash it up with your hands and really knead the salt into the cabbage. this should take a couple minutes and your hands might get sore, but it's worth it. as the salt works into the cabbage it starts to draw water out. you'll notice there'll be a little pool of brine at the bottom of the bowl and the cabbage will start to get a little limp. perfect!

next, stuff all your kraut into your jar. in order for the fermentation to happen correctly you want all of the cabbage to stay submerged under the brine and not make any contact with air. that means you really gotta pack it in there. make a fist and push! as the salt continues to work it's magic the brine line will continue to rise (minimally and over a day or two). if the brine isn't covering the cabbage mix a couple teaspoons salt with a cup of water and pour in enough to cover the top of the cabbage.

next you're going to make your brine bag. get a clean ziplock bag straight out of the box and put a cup or two of water in it, squeeze all of the air out, and shove it in the jar. the purpose of the brine bag is to keep a weight on the cabbage to keep it submerged. you might have to play around with how much water is in the bag--you're going to want to close the top of the jar over it.

a word about brine bags: i'm totally cheating on this brine bag. when you make one for naturally fermenting your pickles you want to use the exact same salt to water ratio as is called for in your brine. that way if the bag does spring a leak it doesn't dilute your brine. i probably should have made a salt water solution for this recipe, but it's not that big of a deal.

there you go! set this guy someplace where he wont be in the way, but you wont forget about him. the flavor of kraut varies on how long it's been fermenting. your kraut will be ready to eat in about a week, and will continue to ferment and get better for 4-6 weeks. i personally like a pretty young kraut, but that's just me. when you hit a point where you really like the taste pop it in the fridge. this slows down (but doesn't stop) the fermentation process. also, if you're making this in the summer time the fermentation is going to be a lot quicker than in the winter time.

lastly, don't forget to put a plate under it. after a couple of days the brine will start to rise and leak out of the jar. this is perfectly natural. feel free to sample it every couple of days to see how it's going, but make sure to pack it down back under the brine line every time. if you're not sampling it, at least burp it every couple of days, that way it doesn't explode on you when you open it up after a week. enjoy!

older work

2011-12-21T19:27:00.000-05:00

in addition to adding new categories for embroidery work and costumes i was thinking i might include a gallery of some of the stuff that i did before i started making the quilts.

unfortunately, all of the pictures i have of the large installation/sculptures i made are really random, and aren't "clean" images that would be ready to show. so i've spent a couple of hours everyday flexing my photoshop skillz getting the images at least up to a point where there's not dirty underwear on the ground next to the art.

this is a "command center" i made in my room in one of the places i lived in brooklyn. it was actually pretty handy: on the lower left was a drawer with a hanging file, the bottom row of pictures actually flipped up and i could hide my computer behind the false front, and the top cabinets held most of my books at the time.

there's also a "power generator" and a walkie-talkie, and maybe some other stuff. we'll see what else i can dig out of the vault.

quick one

2011-12-17T20:01:00.000-05:00

it's been a little crazy around here lately getting ready for the holiday and i haven't had a chance to get into the studio all that much.

my friend alex stopped by the other night (i found this video of him that's awesome and you can see the flag i made him a while back!). he had just bought an old flag at a flea market and wanted to use it as a back seat cover for his truck.

i basically just sewed along the existing seam lines through the flag and onto a sturdy cotton duck canvas. i left a tab border all around so he could add grommets and pull the flag tight against the seat.

he sent me a text the other day of the finished product. looks pretty sweet!

bodega bags

2011-12-11T09:02:00.000-05:00

it's another bodega bag post! but this time i'm gonna show you how to make them. these things are amazing. they're small enough to shove in your pocket on the way to the grocery, washable, and strong enough to carry 3 six packs. i always keep a couple on hand and make a couple extra to give to people.

i used to make them for the restaurant i worked at as the delivery bags (delivery in new york is done by bike) to use instead of plastic bags. i sell them now at my local grocery store and he needed more, so here we go...

for the pattern you can use anything: newspaper, craft paper, poster board; i conveniently had an empty case of beer in the trash and that did the trick. the outer dimensions are 22" x 18". the 2 smaller tabs on the upper outside that you cut away are 1 1/4" x 5 1/2", and the center part that gets cut away is 5 1/2" x 5 1/2". i just curved the edges a little bit.

it really doesn't matter what fabric you use. my local fabric store has a section of cotton/acrylic blend broadcloth for $2.50 a yard in lots of colors, so that does the trick. darker colors are probably better, so as to not show dirt and stuff.

the pattern is 18" wide so you can get 2 bags out of 1 yard of fabric. the broadcloth that i'm using is 45" wide and comes folded. place the handled top part along the fold. if the bag doesn't fit perfectly it doesn't matter, just line the top of the pattern and the folded edges up. you don't even need to wash the fabric.

you can either trace the pattern onto the fabric, or go ahead and just cut around the pattern; which ever is easier for you.

when they're cut out i like to hit the edges with a serger--it's an extra step, but finishes the bags off nicely. if you don't have a serger you could fold the edges over and sew along the edge, or even just leave the edges raw, just know that they'll fray a little. this is what you should have at this point laid flat.

next, just sew up the sides.

to prep your bottom seam you're going to fold the outer 2 edges in onto themselves so that the top handle curves match. the distance between the two edges once folded should be about 4 1/2". i usually just eyeball it. you can pin the bottom as well, but once you get the hang of it and/or are doing a bunch i just hold them in place while i'm sewing. sew the bottom edge closed.

next turn your bag inside out. for all intents and purposes you're basically done at this point. i like to sew a line along the fold on the top of the handles. this just tacks the folded handle together.

and, of course, you've got to put a tag in it!

and there you go! cheap, easy, convenient, and you don't have to constantly be using those plastic bags that are never going to break down.

warnings!

2011-12-09T20:53:00.000-05:00

i'm so excited to start all these embroidery projects that i've been thinking about lately! the first one is something i found out about through my job. i work at a vintage shop and there was a sampler on the wall that a customer was asking about. he pointed out that it was actually a paperpoint sampler and not a regular fabric embroidery that i had assumed. i did some research and the internet actually sells perforated paper specifically for embroidery arts and craft stuff. i liked the idea of sewing into paper and the rigid grid structure of it and wanted to do something with it.

i'd been toying with the idea of doing some text pieces for a while and thought this might be the perfect opportunity.

first i had to figure out how to actually write using the grid. i googled some digital fonts and used that as a jumping off point. then i laid the perforated paper over a regular sheet and used a marker to practice where the stitches were going to go.

this is the first try. it's basically what i wanted, but the curved letters get a little weird and i didn't like that you can see the thread on the wrong side of the paper.

the solution, which ethan came up with, was to glue a piece of black fabric to the back of it with spray adhesive. bingo! that worked.

i worked a little more on the lettering and got that worked out. i wanted these to be more along the lines of the control panels that i had been working on before. I cut a hole in matt board, glued the embroidery piece from behind, and drew some knobs and buttons on there.

here's a close up and you can really see the stitching and the paper grid.

red alert!

shields compromised!

i've got a couple more to make and as soon as i figure out how much i should sell them for i'll be putting them up on etsy and my site.

shirt success!

2011-12-05T10:20:00.000-05:00

i finally got all the shirts done that i've been working on for the past couple of weeks. they turned out great, but i'm good on not making any more shirts for a couple of months. along with the red and white shirt i demonstrated earlier, i'll show you the slight variations on the basic pattern that i have done with the other shirts.

this guy is actually exactly the same as ethan's shirt, so we'll skip over this one.

this one is my shirt. i made this henley-inspired pattern a couple of years ago and it's the shirt i wear all the time now--super comfortable, warm, and not fussy but you still kind of look nice even when you haven't bathed in a while.

p.s. it's brown flannel, i don't know why the picture makes it look like velour or something

only one pocket and i don't even bother with the flap

i guess it's called a mandarin collar, but i basically just don't add the upper fold-down collar part. instead of 2 full rows of buttons and button holes i just sew in a basic placket similar to the ones that go into the cuffs. i actually made this shirt first (of all four) and hadn't figured out how to do the fancy placket yet--maybe on the next one.

and instead of cuffs i add on some sweatshirt waist-banding material. i'm constantly pushing my sleeves up and i got tired of rolling, so this compromise works great. i was actually going to just buy some brown socks and cut the feet off of to use as the cuffs, but as luck would have it i helped my friend make a chicken leg halloween costume a couple of weeks ago and we used brown sweatshirts so i saved the cuffs off of those!

this one i think i'm most psyched about. this is a shirt/jacket that ethan wears at the shop in the wintertime. i made him one last year and he wore holes straight through it. it's a red and black check flannel that is lined with sweatshirt material.

the shirt is basically exactly the same as his other one except i baste sweatshirt material onto the 5 main pieces (back, 2 fronts, 2 sleeves). i just used whatever scrap sweatshirts/pants i had because it's on the inside--it just so happens that the inside of one sleeve is black. i actually attach the 2 pieces together by just serging the edges, that way the pieces stay together really well and you've got all of the edges finished off from the get go.

this next step was a major pat on the back for myself. on ethan's older lined work shirt he pushed the sleeves up instead of rolling them so i wanted to incorporate a sweatshirt cuff on the new one. i actually sewed in a sweatshirt cuff into the interior of a faux regular cuff. i've been thinking about doing this for a while for a jacket that i want to make (and it took me about a half an hour to figure out how to do it), but it worked!

i save all of the buttons that come off of all the shirts for the quilts and whenever i get a naval shirt ethan always claims those buttons for his shirts.

whew! that's enough making clothes for a while, now it's on to a bunch of embroidery pieces that have been stewing for a while that i've haven't gotten a chance to do yet.

jeans surgery

2011-12-03T17:17:00.000-05:00

being someone who knows how to sew and related to someone that works at a bike shop i get a lot of busted jeans sent to me for repair. most of it is "biker butt" where the ass is totally ripping out.

tim sent a couple of pairs of jeans home with ethan the other day and i thought i'd take the chance to show how i fix them. this pair has already had a "preemptive strike." if someone gives me a new-ish pair that has one or two holes to fix i'll go ahead and stitch in an extra layer of denim over the whole ass to reinforce them.

instead of showing how to fix a hole on the already gnarly ass, i'll fix the one on the knee first. i always thought knees were the nail in the coffin for jeans until i realized that the side seam is held together by just one row of stitching and can be opened (gaining access to the holy knee) and closed again relatively simply.

the fist thing is to cut off all the stray threads that line the hole--they just get in the way and make the whole thing look messy. then take a scrap of denim and pin it to the wrong side of the hole. i've got a bin full of scraps from making jeans, making cut-offs, and hemming jeans, so i can usually match the colors pretty well.

when pinning, try to lay the piece of fabric flat and as close to the original shape of the hole as possible, that way you're not fixing the hole but at the same time expanding it to twice the size of the original.

then stitch around the hole as close as possible. flip the denim inside out and cut off the excess fabric as close as possible to the stitching.

then you want to just go back and forth a shit ton to basically marry the two fabrics. i like to work in a grid pattern. usually i like to use a variegated blue denim thread to match the colors a little better, but there was already black thread in my machine and this pair is on its last leg anyway.

the crotch area can be a little more difficult because of all the different planes and angles that are coming together, but you are basically fixing it exactly the same way as the knee.

this week ethan and i went to the museum of natural history and the hayden planetarium. we checked out the new show in the planetarium, journey to the stars, that was narrated by whoopi goldberg and it was awesome! i love going to planetarium shows, i just wish they were longer.

and running concurrently there's an exhibit in the museum called beyond planet earth about the future of space exploration. you get to see some old and new space suits, capsules, and rovers and learn about the future. blue sky on mars! totally awesome!

ethan's shirt

2011-11-29T14:08:00.000-05:00

i've got a couple of shirts to make. they're all slightly different, but this shirt (for ethan) is kind of the standard shirt with all the pockets, flaps, cuffs, and stuff so i thought i'd show how to do this one first. as with the jeans post i'm not going into super detail, just basically skimming over how to make a shirt.

i got the pattern by actually ordering a "western" shirt pattern from simplicity. of course, because i'm much smaller than most common clothes sizes i had to take the pattern in a lot (even from its smallest size), but eventually i got it right. i traced the onion-skin pattern onto poster board which makes them less fragile and easier to handle. i still keep the directions close at hand and refer to them a lot. thank god ethan and i wear the same size shirt--that way i don't have to switch between 2 sizes all the time!

with each shirt i make i like to try something new and a bit more challenging. that way each shirt i make gets a little nicer and i learn a little more about the construction process (and how to sew better). i hate iron-on fusable backing, so for this one i'm just basting cheap cotton broadcloth onto the backs of the pieces that call for interfacing.

the first thing to do are the pockets. on about the third shirt i made--and with enough teasing from the guys at the bike shop about how the patterns on the pockets didn't match up, i decided to figure this out. this parts a pain in the ass and time consuming, but makes the final product come out killer. once the front pieces are cut out i line the pocket pattern up with where it will be placed on the shirt and mark the shirt's (plaid) pattern on the paper pattern; that way i can line up the (plaid) patterns when i cut out the pocket pieces.

you can see with a little patience and practice you can get the pattern pieces to match up pretty well--that shut the guys up at the bike shop! (click to get a close up)

next step is to attach the two front bands where the buttons and buttonholes go. again, carefully matching up the patterns.

after attaching the front 2 pieces to the back panel you put the collar on. this part is a little magic--getting everything to line up and fold over onto itself so that no raw edges are showing. as i was making this i was just thinking how pysched the first person who figured out how to do this must have been! seriously, like magic.

the other thing i wanted to focus on was the sleeve plackets for the cuffs. on all my previous shirts i had just been attaching a continuous band, folding one side under and stitching it, but i wanted to try a fancier way of finishing it off. the nicer way has two separate pieces; one of which actually gets sewn up and over the other side, that way the whole placket lays flat and one side "hides" the other one. so fancy. total bitch to do.

then comes the sweet 3-d fun phase and all the sides get sewn up.

the final bit of sewing is attaching the cuffs. i think the plackets came out pretty nice. i went back and looked over some other store bought shirts in my closet and saw how i could do it a little better, but not bad for a first try.

add some buttons, buttonholes, finish the bottom, and add a tag and... yeah baby! we got a shirt.

like i said, i've got a couple more to make that have slight variations, so i'll just be showing how i stray from this model, but this is the basic shirt.

happy thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T12:03:00.000-05:00

may all your eggs be pink!

jeans!

2011-11-22T20:43:00.000-05:00

finally, a jeans post! i've been meaning to do a post on making a pair of jeans for a while now. sorry it's long, but there's lots to fit in. a couple things first:

1. i'm a jeans purist. i'm really only interested in raw selvedge denim and i rarely wash my jeans. learning how to make my own jeans came out of the fact that it's super hard to find raw denim jeans that fit me--i have a small waist and absolutely no ass, so i'm smaller than most places smallest size.

2. i've found 1 pair of jeans that fit me perfectly and of course they're $175. i'm obsessed with a.p.c. jeans, but as a broke artist, i needed to spend a little less on my jeans.

3. the pattern that i have is from a pair of a.p.c. jeans that i took apart, traced, and put back together. i have a rough understanding on how to make a jeans pattern, but making patterns is not fun and this way is just easier. some friends got excited about the fact that i learned how to make jeans, but honestly, if your jeans cost less than $100 it's worth it just to buy them. i'm on my 5th pair of homemade jeans (including 2 pairs of shorts) and it still takes about 7 hours to construct 1 pair. for realz. alright, let's do this:

i'm going to give the bare bones, and "highlights" to making a pair: it's really intense and i don't want to break this down into 20 posts.

i lay out and trace my pattern onto the denim. i like to draw in all the fold lines as well. after i cut everything out i go ahead and press down (and up) on all the fold lines. this helps me out in the long run.

i'm using a black denim. normally i only want selvedge denim, but i wanted a black pair of jeans and they don't make black selvedge denim.

the first thing i do is all the pockets. i like making the pocketing fabric red--why stick with boring old white when you're making them for yourself? the back pockets are pretty self explanatory and easy.

the front pockets took a little bit to bend my mind around. the most interesting thing i found about "deconstructing" a pair of jeans was that the pocketing is actually inside out, i.e. when you stick your hand in your pocket you can actually grab hold of the seam of the pocketing--the finished seam is on the "outside"of the pocket instead of the inside (even though it's on the inside of the jeans--ha!).

next up is the fly. i'm addicted to button flys which can be a little tricky, but with some practice i've almost got it down pat. figuring out where to put the buttons and buttonholes is tricky because where they are placed REALLY effects the fit.

this one little 3 inch seam below the fly is a total bitch and i couldn't figure it out until the 4th pair i made. it's a hidden stitch on one side and then over stitched to keep the folded fabric down. it helps to have the "re-constructed" original pair on hand to refer back to to double check if you have any questions.

once the pockets and fly are done and the yolks are attached it's time to get 3-D!

this part i always find hilariously confusing--even on shirts (and don't even get me started on the lined vest i made once)! you're essentially taking 2 or more pieces of fabric that lay flat and by sewing them together forming a 3 dimensional object that does not lay flat. trying to sew the right seams together can seen mind-altering. at least denim has a very clear right and wrong side. the seam on the inside of the leg is done first and then the two right-sides of the front and back piece are sewn together up the outer sides.

the last bit of sewing is the belt loops and waistband. trying to get the stitching on the jeans to match perfectly is a losing battle (i don't have an industrial machine) and this includes the belt loops (look at the "backside" of the belt loops on your jeans and you'll see what i mean). the most convenient thing i've found is cutting the belt loops out along the selvedge edge of the denim and folding the raw edge under the finished edge. these jeans aren't selvedge denim so i found that just serging one side and folding under the raw edge works well.

the finishing touches are the buttons and rivets (you can find them here) and, BAM! a new pair of jeans that i made myself! like i said this is my 5th pair and i still had to rip out a couple of seams to get it right, but every time i get better. aside from the price aspect of the a.p.c. jeans, i also just like being able to make my own clothes-some weird pride thing. i'm going to start to include some of the clothing and costumes onto my main site when i get a couple more things made.

miscellany

2011-11-18T10:31:00.000-05:00

every once in a while i get "discovered" on the internet. i am always shocked and excited whenever this happens, and it seems to happen completely randomly and out of the blue. it's usually a big spike in the hits to my sites (etsy, jm.com, blog) and new people reaching out to me interested in the quilts. i've been fortunate enough to meet some pretty amazing people and have had some awesome opportunities come my way because of it. this past week boingboing.net did a post on my quilts which led to people taking notice and some reposting it on their own sites.

most of the time the reposts are exactly that--a word for word reposting with the same images that just gets linked around the internet, but every once in a while some one will go a little further and bring up other people that are doing similar things as well. i always like these posts the best because i get to find out cool stuff that other people are doing in the same vein that i haven't been able to find myself. satin moon's blog took the original boingboing post and ran with it--hitting it out of the park!

she not only included this image of an amazing quilt made in 1876 by ellen harding barker (which i had seen before)

but also posted this one: the herschel astronomy/solar system quilt that is super rad and i had never seen before. you gotta check out the link--there's little written descriptions on each of the heavenly bodies describing them!

she then goes on to include 13 different quilters doing space themed quilts! some i have actually heard of and communicated with (hi liz!) but it was really great to find even more people of like minds. judy ross even has her own apod (astronomy picture of the day), what??!! amazing.

as for me, now that v838 is finally done i have a few different projects lined up before i start the next quilt (which will be a mining operation in the rings of a planet). i have a pile of fabric that has been sitting in the corner of my studio waiting to be made into clothes for ethan and i, so that's got to get done. i also wanted to concentrate in ernest on working on some more embroidery projects. i've dabbled a little with it in the past, but i've got a lot of new ideas, so we'll see where that takes me. i also want to start including some embroidery/drawing stuff on the main site as well as including the costumes that i've made for my spaceman.

and i leave you with this amazing feet of cobbling (unintentional pun) ethan and i were out looking for new boots for him and i came across these nebula printed shoes. nebula printed shoes!!!! that is all.

finished!

2011-11-16T13:24:00.000-05:00

woo hoo! the attack on the v838 energy collectors v2 is finally done! adding the stars is always a cool part for me because on the one hand it adds depth to the image, and at the same time it can really flatten the image with an overall decorative look.

the grey embroidery that connects the energy storers felted up a little in the wash (they're 50% wool), but it turned out looking pretty cool. it also shrunk a little bit too--ha! oops!

here's the original version that i made way back in 2008. it was my 6th quilt and my first one that was science fiction based. i'd say i've come a little ways!

i was anxious and excited to get this quilt done because i had a couple of deadlines to meet. i'm applying for grad school and wanted to get this one included in my portfolio and i'm also applying for this year's nyfa grant. finger's crossed!

here's a detail shot. you can see all the glamour shots over at my website! check it out: jimmymcbride.com!

edging

2011-11-14T10:25:00.000-05:00

now that everything on the face of the quilt is done it's time to finish up the edges. i've done quilt binding before and it's a total bitch to get both sides looking good, so now i just fold over the bottom layer of the quilt to edge it. i cut the batting roughly 1 inch larger than the quilt top and the backing fabric about 2 inches larger than that. the quilts are supposed to be pretty wonky and i definitely help the wonkiness along by exaggerating the curves when cutting the batting for the edges.

here's a detail shot of how the edges are finished off. the backing fabric is folded over the batting and then folded over one more time and then pinned on the front of the quilt. this is an insanely easy way to finish off the quilt and i would imagine if i made all the edges straight the finished product would be pretty neat and tidy looking.

for the corners i pull up all the extra fabric and snip off a little bit (too much fabric makes the corners bulky and it's hard to fold everything in). i take one side and basically fold it under the other side and try to match up the new folded "seam" with the corner of the quilt.

here's a better image after the extra fabric has been folded under and pinned.

i like to run three rows of stitches on the edging. the closest stitching to the inside secures it to the quilt top, the other two rows are basically decorative, although i like the stitching on the outer edge because after it's washed the interior batting doesn't bunch up. i also think the three rows of stitching give the quilt a nice "framed" look.

and of course last, but not least, you gotta put a tag on it! then it's off to the laundromat!

pickled eggs!

2011-11-13T09:11:00.000-05:00

all right! so, your pickled beets should be all nice and ready to use for the pickled eggs. every year my mom makes a big batch of these for thanksgiving and we work through them over the following weeks and then she adds a little more vinegar and sugar and new eggs and they're ready to go again for christmas dinner!

here's the recipe:
3 12 ounce jars of pickled beets (or the equivalent of your homemade)
1 16 ounce bottle of apple cider vinegar
1 cup of sugar
1 dozen hard boiled eggs.

mix the sugar and apple cider vinegar into the container you're going to be pickling them in. i had a large jar of apple cider vinegar on hand so i didn't need to buy the small bottle--16 ounces is 2 cups. the sugar will dissolve after a couple of stirs. if there's a little sugar grit in the bottom it's no big deal. if you're not using homemade pickled beets (shame!) there's a brand (i forget the name) that's pretty common in most grocery stores and it comes in 12 oz jars. the jars i used to pickle my beets were roughly 24 ounces, so i'm using a jar and a half. pour out the beet brine into the vinegar and sugar mixture and stir. then basically alternate some beets, then some eggs, etc and say goodbye to that pretty white of the eggs.

oh yeah baby! these bad boys will be ready in about a week. they turn bright pink! omg i can't wait. i usually eat them with a little salt sprinkled on top. i gave one to my friend jose one year and the first thing he did was squirt some hot sauce on it and take a big bite--ewww!

work, work, work

2011-11-11T21:01:00.000-05:00

big post, sorry! a lot of steps have happened real quickly, so i've got to squeeze them all in. i got all the hand quilting done in and around the "space thing" i only came out about 2 rows from the v838 with the hand stitching.

this is one of the reasons why i love hand quilting. the backs are sometimes just as cool as the fronts. (click to enlarge)

then it's on to machine quilting. because all of the lines are already drawn on, this part is pretty mindless--it's just following the lines. the only thing that kind of sucks is the fact that you have to roll up a side of the quilt in order to get it to fit under the arm of the machine. machining the quilts goes by pretty quickly--about a day or two.

when the machine quilting is done i mark in where all the lasers are going to go. i'm hand embroidering these on.

like i talked about earlier with doing the embroidery on just the quilt top, with the stars and lasers i don't actually secure them to the fabric. i make sure to leave "tails" inside of the sandwich on both the intake side and the outtake side. the thread stays put squished inside of the sandwich; to my surprise, it doesn't even come out when the quilts are washed in the washing machine.

for both the stars and lasers i'm using a sashiko thread. sashiko is an amazing form of japanese quilting with super rad geometric designs. but i also just like the weight and colors of the thread--they're the perfect size, bigger than embroidery floss and smaller than the big chunky stuff i used for the wires connecting the power storers.

once all the lasers are stitched on i go around and randomly mark with pins where i want the background stars to be. i go ahead and just use straight pins because the quilt stays pretty flat on my table while i'm embroidering the stars on and it's just easier than having to deal with the safety pins again.

i try to make the star pattern as overall and random as possible.

for the stars i try to mix up the sizes as i go along. some are bigger, some smaller, and most of them are medium size 5 point stars like the one on the left.

here's a little detail of the lasers and stars up and running. it's getting close to the end now! all i have left to do is edge the quilt, trim all the stray threads, and wash it!

also, to everyone who found me thanks to boingboing--hello! and thanks for stopping by!

quilting time.

2011-11-03T10:54:00.000-04:00

now that all the the embroidery is done (for now) it's time to make the sandwich. i've found that just going out and buying a sheet set is the easiest and cheapest way to get a large swath of fabric for the back. i use quilter's dream cotton batting for the inside. i love that stuff! for almost all of the quilts i've used the pink one (it's called "request", mid-loft) it's great for hand and machine quilting, not too thin, not too thick, etc.

when the sandwich is all ready to go and pinned up on the wall i draw in where all of the quilting lines are going to be. this one, like the most recent ones, i'm going to hand quilt around the "space thing" and then machine quilt the black expanse.

once all the lines are drawn it's time to pin the sandwich together. i found out about these safety pins a while ago and they rock! they're slightly bent so that you can easily scoop up the three layers of the sandwich and not have to fumble trying to make sure you got everything. it's the little things, right?!

then, BAM!, into the quilting hoop. i stretch it pretty taught; my quilts are all a little wonky, so if things get distorted it's actually for the better.

and now the quilting begins! i actually really enjoy hand quilting the quilts. i get excited every time i get to start quilting and although it starts to totally suck after about a week or two, i still just love doing it. if i had infinite studio time (and it didn't take so long) i would hand quilt all of the quilts. i really don't like the look of the machine quilting, but there's not that much i can do about it if i want to do more than a couple of quilts a year.

i've gone through lots of needles and i've found that i like these size 7 darning needles the best. they're long enough you can get up to four or five grabs of the fabric for each go through, but they're still slim in your hand. don't even get me started on the "quilter's needles"--those things are like 1 inch long. how are you supposed to do anything with those things?!

pickled beets!

2011-11-01T09:29:00.000-04:00

it's getting to be that time of year again for pickled eggs! i've been making my own pickled beets for the pickled egg recipe for a while and i thought i'd share it so we can all make the pickled eggs from scratch together!

for the pickled eggs you'll need the equivalent of 3 12 oz jars of pickled beets. i got two bunches of large beets and it looks like its about the right amount (the picture is not to scale)--although you should make extra, these things are delicious on their own.

start by trimming off the beet greens (save those to eat later). slice off the top part of the beets where the stems attach and chop them up so that they're all about the same size. don't peel them. boil the beets for about 45 mins or until you can shove a fork through them and get little resistance.

i boil them because it's easy, but wrapping them in foil is just as good and it gives them a great roasted flavor.

once they're done boiling (and they cool down a little) the skins literally just slide off. i learned this trick a couple years back and i still think it's the coolest.

then it's time to pack them into jars. this is a basic pickled beets recipe, so i don't add anything else to them.

i've done a lot of experimenting with the brines for this recipe, and i've found that adding a little sugar really helps. my usual brine of just vinegar and salt made them too cloying. when they're packed in the jars make the brine:

1 cup white vinegar
1 cup water
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 cup sugar

you might have to actually heat this brine up a little to dissolve all the sugar. let it come back to room temperature before you pour it over the beets.

voila! beautiful pickled beets. pop these babies in the fridge and let them sit for about 2 weeks. again, these are refrigerator pickles, so there's no need to can them. then, when thanksgiving's coming up, they'll be ready to go when you make pickled eggs!

embroidery time

2011-10-28T19:42:00.000-04:00

you'll have to excuse me, but this post's going to be a long one. i wanted to do a post on the embroidery work and i didn't want to do one half way when i wasn't done yet.

the first step is to draw in where i'm going to embroider. for this step it's just the wires that connect the energy storage units and some explosions. i am far from an experienced embroiderer, so i'm kind of learning as i go. the most i've ever done on the quilts is stars (and a little filling in on m64 v3), but this is the first quilt that i've really tried some new stitches and gone into some detail with the needlework.

for most of the embroidery for this step i'm using brown paper packages trio embroidery yarn. it comes in a zillion colors, but i was mostly looking for something that when sewn would really stand out from the background, so it had to be pretty thick. it's 50% silk and 50% merino wool.

because this is new to me, i got a little quick how-to pamphlet from purl, and have been watching lots of youtube videos as always. the wires between the energy storers i wanted to be really big and bulky, so i used a chain stitch. the stitch length is much bigger than how your probably supposed to do it, but it works and looks pretty good, and i've got a whole quilt to work on.

here i'm coming to the end of all the wires and it's looking pretty good. for the farther away energy panels (on the right side of the quilt) i did the wires in a slightly darker grey and a simple smaller backstitch to hopefully emphasize scale.

for the explosions we're getting a little more complicated. they're starting off with a simple running stitch--much the same way all the hand quilting is done.

then, i'm going back in and with a different color doing a whipped running stitch. i'm still psyched about this! it looks so fancy, and it was super easy to do. i think going in and adding detail to the explosions really make them pop.

here's a detail so far with all the the embroidery done in this section. (click to enlarge) the lasers and stars i'm going to hold off to do until all of the quilting is done. i wanted to go in and add these details now because i needed to be able to knot and secure everything on the back--and i didn't want to do it on the back of the quilt, so i'm essentially hiding all the ugly bits inside of the quilt. the way i usually do the stars is to just to sew into the top layer of the quilt leaving a "tail" on the inside at the beginning and end of every star--no knots. i know it's risky, but they've never come out, even when washing, and these quilts aren't really going to get a lot of wear and tear from use.

and of course, i'm always working on something else. (probably why it took me so long to get all the embroidery done.) it's starting to get pretty cold around and my trusty sweatshirt is so threadbare that's it's about the weight of a t-shirt. i made a pattern from it and, with a few adjustments, i now have my own customized sweatshirt pattern. the good fabric store is too far away, so i went to the discount store 3 blocks from my house where they sell sweatpants for $5. two pairs of 3XL sweatpants and and one sweatshirt (for the waist-banding and cuffs) and you've got all the material you need! yes, one sleeve is grey.

and last, but not least, i've been meaning to do this for a while. i got several pairs of these socks last year for christmas with the intention of making george a sock monkey (his first toy was a red heel sock frog). it came out pretty good, and george loves it! (i'm giving the ears a week tops before he tears them off).

purl soho

2011-10-22T18:12:00.000-04:00

the next step in the construction of the quilt is making the "sandwich"--or quilt top, then batting, then backing fabric. the closest place to me that sells quilter's dream batting (awesome stuff and the only batting i use anymore) is purl soho.

although i think this place caters more to knitters, there's still tons of stuff for quilting, sewing, embroidery, craft projects, and anything else you might want to work on.

the space is long and narrow with lots of different kinds of yarns along the left hand wall. we didn't get to this place the last time she was in town, but this place is at the top of my mom's list of places to go in nyc. i'm not a knitter so all i can really tell you is that the colors are pretty and i'm sure it's all amazing yarn.

they've got a pretty big middle wall section that is some notions and tools and lots of embroidery floss. this is whee i've been getting all the different kinds of thread to embroider on the quilts. there's silk, cotton, linen, thick thin, etc in every different color. i also picked up a handy how-to booklet on embroidery stitches the last time i was in.

in the back they have a good selection of all different kinds of fabric on bolts. the quilter's dream batting is in the back, but all you have to do is ask and they'll grab it for you. everybody that works there is super nice and helpful, especially coming from someone who is teaching himself things as he goes. they even offer classes in the back. if you're in the soho area, or a crafter visiting nyc you've got to check out purl!

V838 V2 top done!

2011-10-17T23:16:00.000-04:00

here's the last section (lower right hand corner) of the V838 quilt top all pieced together.

...and with all the ships appliqued on. once all 4 corners are done it's just a few more lines of stitching until the whole top is done! and now the moment you've all been waiting for...

yeah baby! i'm happy and i think it looks pretty good. the sci-fi quilts that are in my head and will be coming up are much more colorful and dense with information, but i wanted to really stay true to the original quilt that i was remaking for this one.

amazing what a couple of years can do in the learning department.

3rd section done

2011-10-15T17:54:00.000-04:00

here's the 3rd section (top right corner) all pieced together. this one was a bitch and took a lot longer than the other corners. lots of tiny pieces.

and here we are with all the ships appliqued on!

...and the set up section for the fourth and final corner of the V838 V2 quilt top. (lower right)

if you are in the nyc area for the next couple of months and you want to see a couple of quilts in person you should check out the textile arts center! they are an awesome space that provides classes and venues for hosting exhibitions in the textile arts. they are stationed in brooklyn and just recently opened an outpost in manhattan.

the manhattan location is hosting an exhibition to go along with the push stitchery book. i installed M64 V3 and M1 V2 there this week. There's around 10 other artists there that are featured in the book and the work is fantastic! that's luke haynes in the pic helping to install (he really got the ball rolling on the show) also, check out all the looms on wheels in the middle of the room!

the opening reception is friday, october the 21st. come and check it out!

pickles!

2011-10-12T12:25:00.000-04:00

because i'm obsessed with pickles and they actually tie into my space trucker story (he transports salt and vinegar to the colonies) i thought i'd share some pickle recipes. i do a post every year for pickled eggs (family tradition) but i thought i'd expand my repertoire.

this first recipe is for refrigerator cucumber pickles. for this first post i thought i'd start with the basic pickle that everyone knows. i've been pickling for about 6 or 7 years now and have tried lots of different kinds of pickles. i've done batches of naturally fermented cucumber pickles (kosher dills, etc.), but none have really stacked up to my favorite store bought pickles. the fermented ones have a great flavor, but lack the crunch you get from biting into a delicious claussen.

so, obviously, it starts with cucumbers. i went out to the farmers market and got a bag of kirbys, a white onion, and some garlic. it doesn't matter how many cucumbers you get, just get enough to fill the amount of jars you have.

i like spears, but you can do halves or wholes (although the wholes take longer to pickle). i cut all the cucumbers, peel the garlic and cut each clove in half, and peel and very loosely cut up the onion.

then, start packing them in! you kind of just want to put a couple spears in, and then a little bit of onions and garlic, then spears, onions, garlic, etc. until they're really in there tight. i like to throw in a half of a hot pepper too for a little bit of a bite (optional). everything is to taste so experiment!

for the brine i use my standard brine recipe:
2 cups white vinegar
2 cups water
4 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt (3 tablespoons sea salt.)

a couple notes on brine: as far as the salt goes, there's a discrepancy between the amounts of kosher vs. sea salt--it's different amounts because of the size of the salt grains. sea salt granules are smaller and therefore more fit into a tablespoon. if you're using kosher salt for a recipe and it calls for sea salt, the amount of kosher salt you will use is 1 1/2 times the amount of salt the recipe calls for. what ever you do do not use iodized salt (most table salts).

when recipes call for specific amounts of vegetables to specific amounts of brine ingredients, these are arbitrary. the ratio of the brine ingredients should remain constant (double, triple, halve the recipe it doesn't matter) and buy how ever many vegetables you need to fill your jars and the pickling process will remain the same. i use old pickle jars, peanut butter jars, whatever. there's no canning for refrigerator pickles so you don't need new or special jars or lids. also a lot of brine recipes call for you to bring the water vinegar mixture to a boil to dissolve the salt and/or sugar. i've found that the salt will dissolve pretty easily into the vinegar before adding water, that way you don't have to make your kitchen smell like caustic boiling vinegar.

as far as spices go, i like my pickles to not be too fussy. you can add fresh dill, mustard seeds, black peppercorns, whatever you want, and they just get better!

fill the jars to the top with the brine, pop those babies in the fridge and let them sit a week and you've got delicious homemade cucumber pickles!

2nd section done

2011-10-08T17:37:00.000-04:00

here's the second, or lower left, section all pieced together. the larger ships were big enough that i went ahead and pieced them into the background instead of appliqueing them on. ethan pointed out that he likes this quilt because it references the more geometric grid patterns of older, more traditional, quilts.

...and here we are with the rest of the ships and energy savers appliqued onto the top.

here's the third section (the upper right) all queued up on the wall and ready to go.

my cousin (the one that i did the wedding tree for) sent me an awesome gift as a thank you: this scientific american hubble telescope space calendar! sweet!

we also did some clearing out of the apartment this past week and that meant finally letting go of the awesome crate that my quilts came back from norway in. it was taken apart, but still took up a lot of room in our only closet in the whole apartment so something had to be done. i couldn't just throw the thing away, so i saved my favorite corner. i attached some wire onto the back of it and it hangs on my studio wall now.

1st section done

2011-10-06T10:52:00.000-04:00

here's the finished top left hand corner of the quilt all pieced together. this is just all the pieces machine stitched together, next comes the appliqued pieces that get sewn onto this.

once the wonder-under is ironed onto the back of the fabric it basically becomes like a un-sticky sticker. you peal the back off and then iron it onto the fabric and it adheres to the top.

this is one of the types of ships ironed onto the black quilt top.

aside from the ships, the only other thing that's getting appliqued on is the energy storers (the grey circles) on the back of the energy collector panels.

i really hate applique, but it's kind of my only option for adding tons of ships into the design without going absolutely crazy. to finish the edges i do a tight zig-zag stitch. i think this makes it look nicer and also keeps the edges from fraying.

that's better! now it's starting to come together! here's the finished section so far. i'll also be doing some embroidery work on the energy panels and explosions and, of course, laser beams, but that all comes later. and the final step is always to add the stars into the background as well.

here's the lower left corner all put back together on the wall and ready to be sewn together.

lax's fabrics

2011-10-03T20:15:00.000-04:00

i discovered lax's fabrics earlier this year am i'm hooked. it's a basement store in the hasidic part of south williamsburg. i tried to find it last summer, but the gate was down and it looked like it had gone out of business. there's actually no fabrics, just decorative plates in the window.

it's a tiny little shop with low ceilings, but there's wall to wall bolts of amazing fabrics. catering to the large orthodox jewish community, there's not a lot of crazy prints here, but i don't really go for those anyway. like your navy blues and blacks? you've hit the jackpot!

it's run by a really nice guy who's very helpful. there's LOTS of amazing wools, flannels, cottons, and blends. when i was in this past week he was rotating stock to gear up for the cooler weather and i got excited seeing all of the thick wools in tweeds and plaids.

as far as i can tell, he doesn't sell any notions, although there's an amazing notions store just down the street. just tons of bolts in lots of solids and amazing conservative patterns.

you should definitely check this shop out, but one caveat: CALL BEFORE YOU COME. i can't tell you how many times i've shown up there and he's closed. aside from the obvious saturday closing he has the oddest hours.

all cut out!

2011-10-01T21:45:00.000-04:00

after some distractions in the studio i finally got all the pieces cut out. the rest of the colored pieces took about another day and a half in the studio and the black pieces alone took a full 7 hour day in the studio to get them all done.

with the colors, if there's a lot of one specific color i like to mix in a couple of different shirts of the same color value so that it doesn't get too monotonous. none of the colors on this quilt really warranted that, but i almost always do it with the blacks. because most of the quilt is black i originally bought 4 black shirts to cut up. i make 4 piles for the pieces and distribute them randomly so the end result will be a more patchwork look rather than having all one fabric in one section of the quilt. i went through the 4 black shirts pretty quickly and ended up using 8 different black fabrics to get all the pieces cut out.

in addition to all of the pieces that will be sewn together to form the top layer of the quilt, i'll also be appliqueing some ships and the energy collectors onto the top. this is an image of all of those extra pieces drawn out onto wonder-under. each group of pieces are cut out and then ironed onto the back of the corresponding fabric so it can then be ironed on (and stuck to) the top of the quilt once all the pieces are sewn together.

once everything is cut out, all of the pieces need to be divided up into their respective sections. here's an image of that magic happening.

then i get to reassemble the puzzle back together. this is the first section, or the upper left hand corner of the quilt. i like to break it down into sections so i'm not trying to work on the whole huge top of the quilt at one time.

here's a close up of the reassembled puzzle. i covered one of the walls in my studio in a material called homasote. it's a 1/2 inch thick board that appears to be made out of what looks like recycled paper. it functions essentially like cork board and allows me to easily push pin things up on the wall without totally destroying it. it was pretty cheap and i painted it white and it works great!

miscellany

2011-09-29T13:20:00.000-04:00

this week in addition to getting almost all of the pieces cut out i had some additional stuff i had to get done in the studio. ethan's work jeans were on their last leg, i.e. i didn't want to patch the holes anymore, so we went up to mood and got some denim and i made him a new pair of jeans. i've made major leaps in my learning how to make jeans since the first pair i did earlier this year.

it's about that time of year that it's getting cooler and we got some new fabric from yoder's when we were back in indiana, so i'm going to make a couple new shirts and a new pair of jeans for me soon. i'm going to do a couple clothing posts, and go into more detail, a little later on.

also, my cousin is getting married and she requested a special gift from me. in lieu of a traditional sign-in book at the wedding she wanted a tree where everyone could sign their name on a leaf. so it was off to the art supply store to get some paper, and time to dust off those painting skills. i did it in watercolor and colored pencil as i thought this would look nice, be the easiest thing for people to write on, and not be too crazy to make on my end.

and last but not least, the announcement cards for a show that i'm in arrived! the people at the rocky mountain quilt museum are hosting the traveling exhibit: "stars! a study of 19th century star quilts by the american quilt study group" and thought it would be interesting to do a show of contemporary star quilts to run concurrently. great idea! and they asked me to be in it! i'll be showing phobos, so if you're in the boulder, colorado area october 31-january 21, check it out!

new bookshelves

2011-09-21T18:50:00.000-04:00

those of you who know me IRL know that i'm a bit of a "jack of all trades/master of none" type of guy. i've been making my own furniture since college and have worked in woodshops and made furniture for friends here and there for about 10 years now. ethan is a reader which means we've got lots of books. in the hallway we had a mixture of a bookshelf left by an old roommate, one given by a friend when she was moving and a couple that i had made previously. it always looked like a mess, so it was time for new ones.

the timing of making furniture is key for me. i've been waiting about a month to do it. because i don't have access to a woodshop, i make all the furniture on the patio which means the stars have to align to give me good weather during the days that i have off from work. finally it happened last week.

i've been working at a vintage furniture shop called repop where they sell lots of mid-century modern tables and credenzas, chairs, etc, and i think the aesthetic is rubbing off a little bit. i grew up with my dad making furniture and he was really influenced by minimal shaker design, so i've always been drawn to that, but i thought i'd take some tips from the 50's this time.

here's the plans for the new bookshelves including the book dimensions, wood list, and cut list. i'm making 2 of them.

day 1&2: get the wood, make all the cuts and glue up anything that needs gluing. the sides are made from 1"x12"x8' pine boards. everything's pine because it's cheap and readily available. the bottoms of the shelves are a little wider than 12", so i had to glue on a little bit more wood to accommodate the larger books we have. on day 2 it rained, but luckily i could just continue gluing everything inside.

day 3: once all the boards that were glued together are dry, everything needs to be sanded down. after that, everything gets screwed together. i decided to just leave the screws exposed, because hiding them (or covering them with wood putty and sanding them flush) would add an extra day to the whole process.

next comes the stain. even though most of the other cabinets in our place are lighter finishes, ethan and i like the look of darker stained wood.

day 4: when the stain has dried overnight it's time for the polyurethane. i use an acrylic based poly because it dries in a couple of hours which means you can put on more coats in a shorter amount of time, and it stinks less than the oil based stuff. i usually like to get at least 3 coats of poly on, but 2 will do for these guys. here's some details of the shelves. they taper slightly from the top to the bottom with a slight ledge in the center. i put legs on them because i love the way nice minimal legs gives the furniture a more streamlined look. i just went to the hardware store and bought 6" plumbers pipe and flanges that screw into the underside. (i ran out of stain, so the undersides didn't get stained)

and there we go! i left them outdoors for a couple more days because even though it's acrylic poly, they still smell like shit for a while. it's hard to get a good angle because they're in a narrow hallway, but here's the front of one and a little piece of the second one. (nice photobomb from george!)

it's cuttin' time

2011-09-15T13:26:00.000-04:00

so, i know i've said before that my opaque projector is my secret weapon when it comes to quilting tools, but i do have a few more tricks up my sleeve.

once all of the paper pieces are cut out the next step is to trace them all onto their respective fabrics. because all the pieces are crazy shapes and most are going onto grided plaid fabrics, tracing them would normally be a nightmare. but, i've found that simple contact paper is indispensable. what i do is just cut a piece about a foot and a half long, peel off the paper backing and tape it down to my table with the sticky side up. (it totally looks like i only have 3 finger in this photo!)

that way i can lay the fabric onto that and trace the pieces without the fabric constantly warping and moving around on me. it keeps the pattern on the fabric straight, evens out any wrinkles, and gives a nice flat surface to trace on.

depending on the shade of the fabric i use either a black or white washable fabric pencil. these work the best for me. i've used the blue washable markers, but the tips wear down easily, can be hard to see on certain colors and patterns, and the ink runs out pretty fast.

once everything's traced on the fabric i start cutting the pieces out. to get the seam allowance i just eyeball about a quarter of an inch. it would be crazy if i tried to draw on seam allowances for all the pieces. because the lines are drawn on and usually easy to match up when i'm sewing the pieces together, as long as i have some fabric on the edges it doesn't matter if it's exactly 1/4".

my other other secret weapon is my pinking shears. normally for concave curves in sewing you have to cut a bunch of notches so that when you press it the seams will lay flat and the fabric on the wrong side doesn't bunch up. again, because of the volume of pieces that i'm cutting out i had to figure out a better way. i've found that if i just hit all the concave edges with the pinking shears right up to the line it allows the fabric enough give to lay flat when it's pressed. it's like adding tons of notches with one stroke of cutting.

so here's all the red pieces cut out and ready to go. now onto the 415 other pieces that need to be cut out. (like i said, this is not my favorite part)

atlantis attic

2011-09-12T23:21:00.000-04:00

doing the quilts the way i do, thrift shops are vital. atlantis attic is the main thrift shop i go to. it used to be on s1st and marcy as atlantis basement, but moved a few years ago. this is place is so big it has (usually) become my one stop shop for all the fabric i need.

the place is cavernous and has basically anything you might need x20 which is great when you go in needing to match a color of fabric to the color of the gases surrounding a nebula.

there's tons of rows of button down shirts (my medium of choice) and it seems like every time i go in there they've moved half of them to a different section of the store.

of course, they've also got t-shirts, sweaters, shoes, belts, anything else you're likely to find at a thrift store, but men's button down shirts are my main focus.

the prices are pretty average for the neighborhood. shirts go for between $7 and $10, pants from around $10 to $15. i don't really use the heavier pants fabric in the quilts, but i was using them a lot when i was making bike hats for b's bikes.

luke haynes stopped by my studio the other day and we bro'd out about quilting for a while. he's based on the west coast and he was telling me about a goodwill near where he lives where you can buy clothes by the pound. amazing. so jealous. takes me back to high school where at the value village you could buy clothes for a buck or two. ah, the good old days.

pieces

2011-09-08T12:59:00.000-04:00

after the pattern is color coded i go through all of the fabric i already have and see what matches up. although it seems like i don't have that much (this image is my whole shirt stash) this bunch has lasted me for most of the quilts with only a few additions for each quilt. sometimes i'll need a color (or shirt) for just one or two pieces. if you look at the detail shots of all the quilts you'll actually see the same shirts being used throughout.

side note: i had to do a wide shot here to include one of my prized possessions: the classic queen II album. side note to my side note: monday 9/5 was freddy for a day. i was woefully unaware of this (especially since queen is my favorite band). every year on freddy mercury's birthday people all around the world don fake mustaches and freddy inspired costumes!!! uh, YES! i'll be better prepared for next year!

anyway, the more and more quilts i do i find i need less and less new fabric. for this quilt i actually only needed 3 new shirts (i am always on the look out for more black shirts, so i don't really count those). one of the colors i needed was the dark orange for the backs of the energy collectors. i had some left over fabric from the original quilt, and low and behold, i actually found the same shirt! it helps when you are using shirts from gap and american eagle and big brands because you can usually find multiples.

once i get the shirts home i take all the new shirts apart. this image isn't to scale, but you can see that you actually get quite a bit of fabric out of just one shirt. i love xxl shirts the best obviously. the cuffs and collars come off as do any pockets. if the yoke is big enough i'll save it, but usually they're too small.

now that i'm making my own clothes more often, i've started saving all the buttons off the shirts too. ethan especially likes it when i get the black wool naval shirts because he can steal all the cool buttons with anchors on them for his shirts.

here's the final pile of fabric that i'll be using for v838 v2 with the matched up color coding. (click on any image to enlarge)

next up is cutting up the pattern. this seems so simple (and it's definitely not hard work) but for some reason i still don't understand why this always takes like 3 hours!

and here we go. this is all of the pieces separated into their respective color coded piles. turns out there's approx. 420 pieces (dude). plus, there'll be more with all of the ships that i'll applique on later. next up is tracing all the pieces onto the fabric and cutting everything out. (i.e. the WORST part).

new flag

2011-09-03T11:23:00.000-04:00

"hurricane" irene left the nyc metropolitan area relatively unscathed, except when i went out the next morning she had taken a big chunk of my flag with her. it was getting to be about time for a new flag anyway, so here we go.

this time i wanted to try a couple of things differently. i had been using broadcloth from the fabric barn that was a cotton rayon blend, and i wanted to try it with 100% cotton. also, as the flags age (i have 4) and tatter, they tend to tatter in a straight line or at a slight curve--never jagged like the pirate flags in the movies, so i decided to cut the black fabric on the bias as an experiment to see how it will fray.

this time i'm also doing the seams a little differently. i don't know what this seam is called, but i learned it when making jeans--it's the same seam that runs along the inside of your pant legs. you just press down a little bit on each piece and fold them under each other. it takes a little bit of work, but the result is a nice clean finish.

i always add a strip of cotton duck canvas along the edge to give it a little rigidity and to help stabilize the grommets.

bam! here's the finished flag. one of the older ones is hanging on the wall in my studio, so i just took a wider shot to show you the contrast. (they're actually the same size--the perspective is weird).

i've had my own pirate flag up at every place i've lived since college in chicago. i was working for a theater company at the time and i had someone in the costume department make it for me. in the original one the design was actually flipped. i found this old slide from back then with photos of me and the flag claiming municipal buildings around chicago as my own.

i love having my own flag (this confuses a lot of people) and always encourage people to make their own.

making the pattern part II

2011-09-01T18:56:00.001-04:00

once the basic parts are projected onto the brown paper i start adding in detail. the rough grid shape i projected onto the paper was just to get the perspective lines for the energy panels, they're actually going to be octagonal. next, i add on the energy storage containers on the back of each panel (the circles) and add in explosions and draw in the lines to connect the panels--which i'm going to do with embroidery.

because perspective plays a big role in this overall image i'm going to try to play that up in the ships themselves. basically there'll be small ships centering around the top right part of the energy collectors (the area furthest away from the viewer), and a medium sized ships throughout most of the rest of the image. after i added in all of those guys i still needed some ships that were much closer to the viewer to emphasize the perspective, so i made a couple big ones.

when i'm happy with the way the overall pattern is shaping up i trace over all the pencil lines in sharpie to make them permanent and easier to see. the next step is to start to color code all of the different pieces. i don't really have any fabrics in mind at this point, i'm just trying to focus on all the gradations of colors that i'm going to need in the end.

thought i'd just throw in this shot of what my table looks like during this whole process. i should really buy stock in crayola.

once everything is color coded i go in and divide all of the big chunks up into smaller pieces for ease in fabric conservation and construction, then i number all of the pieces. the numbering isn't necessarily to actually count the pieces, but for two other reasons. i divide the whole pattern into quarters. in section A i start at 1 and number until the end. in section B i start at 200. section C at 300, etc. this helps so that after everything is cut out and i'm putting the pieces back into their respective section piles i know that if the number starts with 3 it goes in the C pile, and i don't have to stop and think if piece 264 goes in A or B. don't know if that makes sense, but it helps me out a lot. the numbering also helps when i'm reassembling the "puzzle", like numbers will be together and i don't have to constantly keep referring to the pattern.

so, here's the final pattern for attack on the v838 energy collectors V2. (click to enlarge) i'm pretty excited about it. i think just v838 is going to be hand quilted and the rest machine done. the medium sized and small ships and the circles on the backs of the energy panels are going to be appliqued on. i've been watching a lot of embroidery videos because i really want to do a lot of detail work with embroidery on this one.

last, but not least, here's the key for all of the marker colors. now i'll go through all the fabric i have and match things up and head out to the thrift store to fill in the gaps.

making the pattern part I

2011-08-26T20:34:00.001-04:00

and so we begin on the next quilt. the first in a long line of sci-fi, or story quilts. for the first one i wanted to go back and redo "attack on the v838 energy collectors." much the same way i wanted to go back and do the crab nebula justice, i'd like to revisit this one now that my quilting skillz have gotten a little better.

click on any image to see it larger.

all of the story quilts involve a lot more in the design phase. there is the same element of just copying an image straight from the hubble site, but there's lots more going on. this part can get kind of frustrating, because even though i spent 4 years in art school, i still can't draw something that i see in my head--it has to be directly in front of me. this is very frustrating. i do some sketches to get an idea of the general composition: where i want v838, what angle i want the energy collectors at, which way the action of the ships is going to take, etc.

eventually i give up on trying to actually draw what i can clearly see in my head but have no way of expressing perspective wise, and turn to my good old friends: google image search and photoshop. i combined an image of v838 together with a severely cut up and warped graph image of the latitude and longitude lines of earth. this is exactly what i was trying to draw. i then print it out and get ready to project it.

the other thing that needs to get prepped is the hubble image. i run it through a "cutout" feature in photoshop. this breaks the diffuse gases into planes of color that are much easier to translate into swatches of fabric. this was a total game changer when i learned about this. the first 2/3 of the quilts made was me getting crazy headaches trying to figure out where to delineate shapes. there's always a little finessing that happens beyond just plugging the image into photoshop, but this step definitely helps. then i trace the lines onto tracing paper and set up the projector.

this one little piece of equipment is one of the most important parts of the process. i learned a long time ago that you can graph everything out and hand draw it, but for some reason in my eye it never looks quite right. at least if something looks wonky after it's on the brown paper i know it's supposed to look like that, or it's a nice back-up to make sure compositionally everything's working, or if i need to work on something.

i know this image is really hard to see, but i took, like, 5 and this was the best one. it's faint pencil line. the bare bones structure of the image is then projected onto 3 rows of brown paper that have been taped together. i usually start out with 80" x 90" (each roll is 30" wide) and then edit the shape down from there.

the image so far is just the outlines of v838, and the basic structure of the energy collectors. now i can go in and add details to the machines and add all the ships and explosions.

push it!

2011-08-24T16:43:00.000-04:00

push it real good!

the push stitchery book has arrived.

i just got the goods in the mail today and am really excited about it. about a year ago jamie chalmers, or maybe as he's better known mr. x-stitch, contacted me about being involved in a book that he was putting together. of course i jumped at the chance! he had already featured me on his site in a post called the cutting (and stitching) edge which was awesome, and to be asked to be in the book was a huge honor.

as the whole process started about a year ago, it just stayed in the back of my mind for a long time, and then the finished product arrived today and i was blown away. the quality of people that he posts on the site is great, but to be able to see it up close in book form is another experience totally.

there are 30 artists featured from all over the world, doing really different, and really amazing stuff with stitching. the blurb on the back says: "blackwork embroidered cities, cross-stitched cars, stitched stone sculptures and more..." for realz. i'm the last entry and jamie told me that the first person, cayce zavaglia, does hyper-realistic portrait embroidery and he wanted to open with that, and end with something that was out of this world.

it looks like it's hitting stores now. it's push stitchery: 30 artists explore the boundaries of stitched art by jamie chalmers, published by lark books. if you can't find it near you, amazon can hook you up. you've really gotta check this shit out. these people are crazy good.

push it!

the fabric barn

2011-08-23T09:09:00.000-04:00

as part of my new lease on blogging i thought i'd do some posts on the places i frequent to get supplies.

the first store that i'll be writing about is actually where i got the fabric for the first couple of quilts that i made years ago. the fabric barn, or "quality fabric" as it is more usually known, is one of the few fabric stores here in williamsburg, brooklyn.

the store is mostly upholstery fabric and upholstery notions, but they do have some other random things; some ribbon, zippers, buttons, felts, velcro, elastic, thread, etc. very basic stuff, although they do have several different types and colors of vinyl, and also foam padding in varying thicknesses in the back. they have polyester batting that comes on the giant rolls in the back too.

as far as fabric goes, aside from the upholstery, it's mostly synthetics. there are a couple of bolts of cotton and wool in varying colors, and lots of bolts of rayons, acrylics, and polyesters in tons of prints and colors. there's also a small row of gingham bolts.

i don't stop here as much as i used to, but i'll always be back for their broadcloth selection. i'm a total sucker for rows of the exact same kind of fabric in different colors. there's one section right up front where they have 20-30 different colors of broadcloth. it's not great for clothing (it's a cotton rayon blend), but it's great for odds and ends sewing projects. this is great fabric for bags, cheap costumes, curtains, table cloths, etc. and at $2.50 a yard you can get lots of all different colors. i use it a lot in place of muslin for determining fit and sizing on garments.

new roycroft quilts

2011-08-20T18:41:00.000-04:00

finally finished the last of the roycroft quilts for now. i wanted to do 5 more just to beef up the inventory in the store before i really start promoting them. i made a small white one and a small blue and white one. i also made a tan and brown big one, another red white and blue big one, and (my personal favorite) an all black big one.

i made this one in honor of my friend heavy metal sam. it's all black bandana's with red pentagram stars quilted on the front. i'm sure he would approve.

they're all up over at my etsy store roycroft quits. you can check them all out with lots of great detail shots. i feel like i've been a machine in the studio the past couple of days pumping these baby's out. i'm happy with them, but ready to take a break from the bandana quilts for a little while. i gave my mom the "jack" quilt when we visited my parents this past week, and switched the posting over to "made to order." hell, maybe i'll sell one this time. spread the word.

of liz and inspiration

2011-08-17T12:50:00.000-04:00

i know i haven't been blogging a lot lately. there's been a lot of things going on and i haven't had much time in the studio. (i'm also working on a project that i can't show publicly yet which definitely hinders in the sharing category). i've also felt that the posts that i have been doing are a little weak. all of them lately have been basically one image and a little blurb...

a couple of days ago i re-discovered a blog by a woman i met through a mutual friend, liz thayer. (said mutual friend, becca, is modeling one of liz's shirts in the image.) it had been a while since i checked in on her blog and there was a giant post about an awesome letterman's jacket that she had just made. as i was reading the post i realized that the fleshed out descriptions and lots of detail photos was what i want my blog to be more like. so in an effort to be more like liz, and a better blogger, i'll be including much more stuff on my blog now--inspiration, other things i'm working on in the studio, etc.

another thing that got me really excited about her blog was going back and finding this rad shirt she made out of old space printed pillow cases she found! OMG! check out her blog! claflin, thayer and co.

her shirt totally reminded me of a shirt i saw at opening ceremony a couple of weeks ago. it's a t-shirt designed by christopher kane. i was blown away by this shirt (and the price tag) and had to just stare at it a little while. there were a couple of other designs, but my favorite was some kind of orange and red space image printed on a really soft, really thin sweater, but at $950 i'll never see the inside of that thing.

here's the image of the carina nebula that is printed on his shirt.

so on that note, hopefully i'll be updating more regularly and with lots more stuff i'm working on and thinking about to sink your teeth into.

M83 finished!

2011-07-29T21:20:00.001-04:00

finally got m83 done. i'm happy with the work i've done on it, but i'm not as psyched as i usually am when i finish a quilt. i feel like the image could be more developed. i think maybe later on after i've taken a break from it i might go back in and keep adding more detail with the embroidery.

there's also the issue of viewing. most people are going to be seeing the quilts on a computer screen and therefore the "far away", or smaller, image usually needs to be really strong. the thing is that the quilts read really differently when you see them in person. i used a light blue thread to quilt the whole thing, and the stitching is lost when viewed this small. live and learn, right? on that note, see all the detail shots here!

anyway, i'm happy i got this guy done, and i'm really excited to dive into all the ideas i have for the sci-fi quilts! the first one is going to be a remake of the first sci-fi quilt i made: attack on the v838 energy collectors. now that i know a little bit more of what i want the story quilts to look like, i'd like to go back in and improve on the original idea.

detail time

2011-07-16T15:27:00.000-04:00

just got all the quilting done for m83 and now it's on to the hand embroidery. here you can see me matching up where the spots of color are with where the stars are to be sewn. this one's going to be really labor intensive with all the stars and color spots on it.

i use sajou embroidery thread. i'd tell you more about it, but the labels all in french. it's 100% cotton and i like it because it's a good quality and thick enough to really stand out against the backgrounds. i'm using a light blue, pink and red.

...and, i'm very excited to say that i just received the latest issue of quilters newsletter in which there's an article about me! it's a great write up both about me and the quilts. it's the aug/sept issue so it should be hitting stores pretty soon. check it out!

oh, and thanks to everybody who follows me! i just reached 100 followers! i really appreciate the fact that you guys read my blog. i don't know why you come here, wether for the quilts, or sci-fi, or astronomy, or all of the above, but it's awesome!

quilting time

2011-07-06T17:00:00.000-04:00

quilting time has begun. actually, i'm almost half way done with the quilting (thank god for smaller quilts.) I'm using both light blue and red thread. sometimes the backs of the quilts are just as cool in their own way. because i wanted this quilt to be heavy on the hand needlework, all of the stitches are no more that 1" apart, most are about 1/2" apart.

here's a front detail where you can see the stitching over the drawn lines. not too much longer and i can start embroidering the stars on.

new quilts!

2011-07-01T11:59:00.000-04:00

i've had the last couple of days off and i've been busy. i got the new line of quilts up and running. i wanted to have a line that was easy to make and a way to make a little extra spending money. my friend alex actually gave me the idea for these quilts a couple of years ago, and now i am finally getting around to making them.

they're simple bandana handkerchief quilts with a circle and star quilted on each bandana. they've got a soft black and white striped backing fabric and red satin ribbon trim. there's only 3 up for now, but hopefully they'll sell well and i'll be making more.

i even had new labels made for them. (actually, i had the labels made for the clothes that i was making, but they'll work) roycroft was an artist's colony started around the turn of the century in upstate ny that spawned the arts and craft movement. i thought it was relevant considering how americana bandanas are.

check out all the glamour shots at my new etsy store: RoycroftQuilts!

and if anybody knows of stores in the nyc area that might be interested in selling them, i'd love to sell local. let me know.

m83 first look

2011-06-25T19:43:00.001-04:00

i finally got the top all pieced together! like i said before, the pieces of this one aren't going to be as intense; i'm really going to focus in on the stitching.

it shouldn't have taken as long as it did, but i've been working a lot at my job, i made my first pair of jeans, and then a pair for ethan, and then 2 pairs of jean shorts, and started on a different line of quilts. i'm experimenting with doing an easy bandana line of quilts to make a little extra money on the side. i've got the bandanas and other supplies ready to go, but i felt guilty about m83, so i told myself i'd finish the top first.

next step is to pin, draw the quilting lines, make the sandwich, and then start quilting!

piecing time

2011-06-11T16:30:00.001-04:00

so i finally got all the pieces cut out and i put the "puzzle" back together again. it's a little bigger than the normal quarters that i do, but i don't think it should be that bad; there's only a few really small pieces.

here you can see the piecing starting to some together. this one will probably take about 3-4 studio days to fully piece together.

and on a totally different note... the quilts returned from norway yesterday! and they came in this amazing 90 lb, 30" wood cube crate. when the art handling company picked them up last fall i literally just had them in a cardboard box. this thing it so cool, i haven't even taken the quilts out yet!

m83

2011-06-01T18:10:00.000-04:00

on to the next one! the image is just part of m83 (the southern pinwheel galaxy) but it's great. apparently it's one of the closest and brightest spiral galaxies and can be seen with binoculars. this is going to be the last (for now) of the straight up direct representations of space photos. i'm really excited to focus on the sci-fi story quilts, but i had this one lined up and i'm psyched to do it.

my main goal for this one is to try and really focus on the stitching, making a lot of the detail stuff with the needlework and not necessarily with tiny pieces. it's a really dark quilt, so i'm thinking i'm going to do the stitching in either red, blue, or grey--or maybe a combination of the three.

here's the pattern (click on the image to make it bigger). i've decided to make it slightly smaller than the full on 8'-9' ones--so he's roughly 5' square. after m1's mind-numbing amount of pieces and size, this one is taking it easy on me with just 247 pieces. phew!

this is the marker/fabric key with all the fabrics that i'll be using for the quilt. here we go again!

quilter's home

2011-05-19T16:10:00.000-04:00

the lovely people over at quilter's home magazine interviewed me a couple of months ago and the issue is out now (june/july)! it's a great write up and they included images of phobos and wormhole. check it out!

i did it!

2011-05-11T22:41:00.000-04:00

i finally finished M1 V2. i actually finished it last week, but i got a job and haven't had the chance to post it yet. i'm happy with the way it turned out. it's funny, i always get a little nervous about how it's turning out before the stars are embroidered, but once they're on i feel a lot better. they seem to finish everything off nicely, while also adding a lot of depth. it's both hand and machine quilted with hand embroidered stars.

here's the source so you can see what i was working with.

having a job also means not being able to spend as much time in the studio, but i'm kind of ok with that right now. it's nice every once in a while to take a breather and step back and look at what i'm doing. i've got one more quilt that is going to be a direct representation of a space photo, but i think after that i'm going to concentrate on just doing sci-fi quilts for a while. i've got a bunch of ideas that i've been wanting to do, and it looks like it's time!

you can see detail shots of M1 V2 over at my site: jimmymcbride.com

and the quilting begins

2011-04-25T16:01:00.000-04:00

once the top is all pieced together the sandwich is made. here you can see the black backing fabric, the batting in the middle (the white), and then the top. all three of these layers get pinned together and the lines for the quilting get drawn on.

then the whole thing gets put into my homemade quilting stand to start the hand stitching.

and the quilting begins! this starts to be all mindless work and i've been listening to a LOT of podcasts. (shout out to the bowery boys!) although, i have noticed that my stitching has gotten a lot better, i.e. smaller stitches. i'm actually much further along than these photos show--i'm about half way done with the hand stitching. so for now i'm just plugging away.

m1 top done!

2011-04-18T16:48:00.001-04:00

wow, that was intense! here's the finished top of the m1 quilt all pieced together. all 750 pieces. i think it turned out pretty good. it's going to be a mixture of hand and machine quilting and hand embroidery much the same way i have been doing all of the recent quilts, although this one will take a bit longer considering the size of the image. now i've got to get some batting, make a backing fabric panel and i can start pinning the thing together.

i just found out a couple days ago that the video for aol that each grant artist made went up on their site. i made it soon after i found out (in november 2010) and it's finally here! it's just a minute and a half blurb on what i do and what i'm going to do with the grant. it's so weird to see yourself on video, but here it is:

You’re watching AOL Artists - Jimmy McBride. See the Web's top videos on AOL Video

3rd corner down

2011-04-15T17:09:00.000-04:00

just finished the upper right corner.

just one more corner to go!

2nd corner down

2011-04-10T16:50:00.000-04:00

finished the lower left corner today.

here's the pieces to the upper right corner pinned and ready to go.

here's an image of what the back of the last finished section looks like. (click to enlarge)

1st corner done

2011-04-07T16:38:00.000-04:00

just finished the first corner of m1. i think this one might be pretty cool. i like all of the plaids playing off of each other.

this is the lower left corner all pinned up and ready to be pieced together.

here's a close up image of all the pieces pinned back up on the wall. (click on any image to enlarge)

all cut out

2011-04-05T13:40:00.000-04:00

once the pattern is made and all the fabric is picked out, the pattern has to be cut out. the top half of this photo is all the pieces cut out and coordinated by color. (click on any image to enlarge) then comes the huge task of cutting out all of the fabric pieces. this is my most dreaded part of the process, and it took me 8 days (working everyday) to cut out all the pieces. the bottom half of the photo has all of the fabrics cut out and pinned to its corresponding paper pattern piece.

once that is done, the pieces get reorganized into their different corners. i make the quilts in quarters or else i'd go insane trying to work on the whole quilt all at once. you can see how the pattern is divided up numerically.

after that, each quarter gets pinned back up to the wall. this is the upper left hand corner. then, slowly, all the pieces are sewn together.

back in action

2011-03-27T17:47:00.000-04:00

and so we begin again. as i put in the "upcoming projects" folder on my site, i've been wanting to remake m1 (or the crab nebula) for a while. originally it was only my 3rd or 4th quilt, and i still didn't really know what i was doing yet. i think i've gotten to a place where i can really do it justice now, and it's gonna be a doozy. it's coming in at about 750 pieces. i think the most i've done so far for one quilt. (click on the images to enlarge)

here's the source image so you can get an idea of what i'm working with.

it took 5 days just to make the pattern. i broke it down so you could see the pattern making process. 1. the first step is basically to project the image onto brown paper and trace the shapes. 2. i go over the pencil lines with a marker editing to make shapes that are easier to cut out. 3. i start to color code the pattern. each color of marker matches to a swatch of fabric (see next photo). 4. after everything's color coded i go back in again dividing up the bigger pieces into more manageable shapes for cut out and reassembly, and then number the pieces. this helps knowing what area each piece goes in when i'm reassembling the "puzzle"

here you can see the fabric swatches that correspond to the different colors on the pattern, and the stack of shirts fresh from the thrift store and all cut up ready to be shredded.

ADHDS

2011-03-22T11:50:00.001-04:00

alright! the ADHD show is finally over. it turns out it wasn't what i was expecting, but was a great show overall. i didn't sell anything, but as i found out from some of the other vendors, the show is more about meeting people and getting the word out and that it'll actually pay off a couple of months down the road. here's a pic of my home for 4 days over the weekend. (sorry it's blurry) thanks to everybody that came out to see me, and all the great people i met at the show! i met tons of people interested in the quilts, as well as making friends with the people around me: shout out to bob bachler, james kennedy, lynn dunhan, and florian roeper!

i also met with kara from ko angotti. it's a philly based interior design and energy auditing services company. they liked the fact that all the quilts are made from recycled thrift store clothes and did a short video interview with me! she was super awesome and as we were getting ready to shoot i saw ender's game in her bag! great minds think alike, right?! check it out:

so, for now, it's back into the studio i go!

look sharp

2011-03-13T16:15:00.000-04:00

i got my shirt made for the show and i'm all set. it was inspired by the sandmen of logan's run. i'm starting to get pretty nervous about the show. i'm sure i'll be fine, it's just going to be a long weekend.

the books i ordered from apple came too and they look great! hardcover with a dust jacket. i got 2 to have on display in the booth. i also set up an account with a credit card company called square that allows you to swipe credit cards with a little gadget that plugs into an iphone and emails a receipt to them!

and, just to keep people interested, i included an upcoming projects folder to jimmymcbride.com. it's got a folder of some of the quilts that i'll be working on next as well as some conceptual sketches of a series of sculptures i'd like to do down the line once i get the studio space. i've been thinking about them for years so it'd be nice to finally be able to make them. it's a series of shrines made out of old spaceship parts and adorned with candles, pickles and offerings. check em out!

gearing up!

2011-03-07T19:52:00.000-05:00

i'm finishing up getting ready for the show and tying up loose ends. all the quilts have hanging sleeves, i updated my website, got books and business cards printed, etc, etc.

as part of the promotional push for the show the organizers give out an unlimited supply of complimentary tickets to the show. i put together my first mailing list and forwarded them on to everyone i could find an email address for. if you haven't gotten them in your inbox, want to be added to my mailing list, or just want free tickets to a design show let me know! email jimmy@jimmymcbride.com with the subject: tickets and i'll send you the goods. hope to see you there!

cargos done

2011-03-02T15:37:00.000-05:00

finally got the 4 cargo blankets done and documented. i decided to to 4 smaller cargo blankets and hand embroider the stars for the architectural digest show. 2 black and 2 blue/one of each 48" square and 60" square. 1 for each season. this is the last actual product i need to work on for the show--aside from attaching a couple of hanging sleeves, and also the last time i'll be making the cargo blankets.

here you can see the spring blanket in blue with the orion constellation on the right side. they all have grey backing. you can check them all out, with details at jimmymcbride.com!

the rest of the stuff i have to do is all computer dirty work. i just ordered more/better business cards, and ordered 2 books printed to have at the show featuring most of the quilts. iphoto is a great resource and for pretty cheap you can have your own photo books made. i think they'll be a nice accompaniment to have on hand, especially since some of the quilts will be in norway.

2fer

2011-02-20T14:44:00.001-05:00

finally got all the hand embroidery done on both of the quilts and did a final wash last night. I added orange highlights, and buttons to M64 V3

and for wormhole (whose official name now is "The Wormhole Docking Station of Sector 6" tyvm), i added docks that connect to the ships, fire coming out of some of their jets and windows for the upper part of the station. you can check out lots of detail shots over at jimmymcbride.com!

next up for me is mostly computer grunt work. i've got the cargo blankets to make, but mostly it's updating all my sites, sorting images, and doing paperwork. i've got to get press stuff ready for ADHDS and i'm applying for a grant and a residency. fingers crossed!

quilting down

2011-02-17T17:05:00.000-05:00

it's been a good week in the studio. i got all the quilting done for both quilts. machine quilting for wormhole and hand quilting for V3. they're both edged too! now gets into the hand embroidery for both of them.

i've already started on wormhole. i've gone in and added stars to the black background. next step is to add small docks to the ships, windows on the main station, and maybe some ship embellishments.

here's a shot of me working on both of the quilts in my studio. in the rear, V3 is rigged up in the quilting loop, and in the foreground, you can see wormhole rolled up and being fed to velma. i like having two projects going on at the same time. if i get bored or tired of one i just start working on the other.

M64 V3: first look

2011-02-11T17:10:00.001-05:00

just got the top done to the latest version of m64. i like the patchwork aspect of it.

here's a couple of extra shots of the making of...

i like to start with all the little pieces first and work my way up the the bigger ones. not only is it easier to deal with little on little, but by the time i'm done sewing all the tiny pieces together i'm kind of worn out and happy just to be sewing big pieces with not that many funky curves.

i also got all the hand quilting done on wormhole. next step is to start running it through velma. sometimes the backs of the quilt are just as cool, and with the blue thread all the stitches really stand out against the black fabric.

i've been kind of freaking out about the home design show lately and yesterday i kind of came to some clarity. i'm not going to do a second m64 V3 (which i was trying to do for a different show around the same time). i'm also not going to offer to make duplicates of any of the quilts that i have already made. hopefully things will go well and i'll be able to make a little money, but the thought of having to remake the same quilt over and over again is a bit daunting (ironic, considering this is the third version of m64), and i just don't want to do that; i've got plans for new quilts that i want to work on. taking a step back and realizing that yes, this is my sole source of income, but i'm not a quilt manufacturer, has helped my head space a lot.

V3

2011-02-05T19:02:00.001-05:00

in honor of the architectural digest home design show, and the fact that M64 V2 (my most recognizable quilt) is in norway and i won't have it for the show, i have decided to design a version 3. it's kind of cool to see how much i've learned every time i make a new version. this one's going to be a little bit more diffuse, or maybe less contrasty?, and a square at 55" instead of the previous rectangle. i'm going to try to get 2 made, one by hand and one machined.

quilting time

2011-02-02T21:16:00.000-05:00

the "sandwich" is made and pinned and then the next step is to draw on the quilting lines.

once everything is drawn onto the quilt i load it up into my homemade quilting stand. (it's actually wall mounted.) i'm essentially making another sandwich of bottom frame, then quilt, and then top frame held together by hand clamps that keep the quilt taut.

then the quilting begins. for the actual wormhole--the hand quilted part-- i'm using a variegated blue thread. i thought that would look nice not only in the blues of the wormhole, but also against the black background.

wormhole: first look

2011-01-31T19:27:00.001-05:00

just got the top to wormhole done and i'm pretty excited about how it turned out. in the blacks alone there's cotton, wool, flannel, and corduroy. next step is to make the "sandwich" of top piece, batting, and backing fabric, mark the quilting lines, and pin it together. i think i'm going to hand quilt the wormhole and machine quilt the black background and docking station. later on, i'll go in and embroider stars, windows, and ship embellishments, but that's not for a while.

and, as of today, i am officially a full time quilter. i was working another job here and there, but that's over with now and i'm left to my own devices. i'm gearing up for march (the architectural digest home design show). hopefully that will go well--fingers crossed. i've got a bunch of stuff lined up for that.

sooo close

2011-01-23T19:25:00.000-05:00

been busy in the studio working on wormhole and getting ready for yesterday's show. here's my progress so far. this is the lower left of the wormhole pattern pinned to the fabric and reassembled.

then it all got pieced together

this is the top right corner of wormhole pinned and put back together. this is where the piecing gets really time consuming.

... and top right corner completed. i can't wait to see the whole wormhole top finally put together. one more section to go!

i also got the mini cargo blanket done and off to it's new home. i believe it's for a child, hence the baby blanket proportions, with the month of march on the top.

lastly, i'd like to thank everybody for coming out to the show last night! it was a blast. really nice to see some old faces and meet new ones. thanks for all the support.

one night only!

2011-01-20T12:55:00.000-05:00

my friend jason kachadourian is putting on a one night only show with me and some other great artists. if you're in greenpoint, brooklyn on saturday night jan 22nd you should check it out. you can view one of my quilts, and i'll also be selling intergalactic transport patches and my own pirate flag pennants. it's from 7-11 at 717 manhattan ave, apt 3a. dollar beers, music, and art; you can't loose!

Jason Kachadourian presents One Night Only, a show of work by people who know each other and people who should.

New work by: Patrick Costello, Jason Kachadourian, Sam Kalda, Jimmy McBride, and Mark Price.

The five featured artists use pattern, collage and a variety of other means to freeze a moment in time. They obsessively examine their relationship with the environment that surrounds them. By abstracting, modifying and re-using the familiar, they create images that represent select moments in a perpetual process.

This One Night Only is the second in a series of one night, pop up exhibitions that will take place in any available location.

1st quarter done

2011-01-17T19:57:00.000-05:00

because the quilts are so large and they would be a nightmare to piece together all at once, i break them down into quarters. normally, the sections are roughly square, but because of the design of the wormhole the sections are all kinds of crazy shapes.

this is the first section done. the first two sections are going to be kind of plain because they're the ones that are just ships docked against a black background.

because of the number and size of the ships (a lot, and tiny) i decided i was going to have to do something that i hate--applique. i ended up using wonder under and ironing them onto the black fabric and then sewing the edges with a zig zag stitch. it actually turned out better than i expected, and i'm happy with the results of the way the ships look.

because velma, my fancy new machine, doesn't do zig zag stitches, and i needed to deal with the edges of the ships and ethan's new shirt's button holes, i ended up getting a second machine. i got a singer 4423 "heavy duty" model sewing machine. it was pretty cheap and got good reviews and has worked great so far. it's nice having a machine that can do more than velma, but isn't going to have to take the wear and tear that she takes. i've named him henry in honor of the mouse (that i already named henry) that has decided to squat in our apartment for a while.

lastly, i got the diamond design drawn on the mini cargo blanket and it's all pinned up and ready to start sewing.

all cut out

2011-01-15T18:56:00.000-05:00

finally! i got all the pieces for wormhole cut out. there's roughly 450 pieces (650 with all the little ships, but those are going to be ironed on) all individual and hand cut out. this is my least favorite part of the process; maybe i can get an intern or studio assistant or something to do all the stuff i don't want to do--here's hoping. the next step is to start piecing everything back together. this becomes the big reveal because even though i made the pattern and picked out the fabric, i still have no idea what the overall look of the quilt will be.

....and, i just sold a mini custom cargo blanket (3' x 4') with a red back and the star chart for the month of march on the front, so that's also in the works for this week.

also, i just want to say a big thank you for everyone that has viewed the video and posted comments on the etsy site and my blog. the response has been overwhelming with support and good wishes. i'm glad people are enjoying what i'm doing and watching the process as much as i like doing it. thanks!

etsy video

2011-01-11T17:11:00.000-05:00

earlier this summer i was contacted by the great people of etsy and they wanted to do a video portrait of me for their website. of course, i was psyched to do it. ...and they even wanted to do it in character as my space trucker! score. in november we finally got around to filming it, and it just went live on the etsy site tonight. check it out!

i'm thrilled with the results and am so appreciative of everyone over at etsy for all their support.

epic studio day

2011-01-05T18:20:00.000-05:00

actually, it was 2 studio days, but it seemed all encompassing. it started because i got a call from my friend wanting a winter bike hat. ethan's been asking for them for the shop anyway, and we have already had our 1st blizzard of the season, so... i made some new winter bike hats. flannel plaid exterior, fleece lined, with a pull down ribbing to protect your ears. and they're hot. literally. i start to sweat if i wear them too long. pick one up at b's bikes in greenpoint: 262 driggs @ eckford.

then ethan needed some upkeep on his shop jeans and a hole in one of his shirts. check.

and finally, over the holiday ethan picked out some fabric for me to make him a new shirt. he's been rocking the 3 red and black plaid flannel shirts i made him for 2 years now, so it was probably time for a change. i'd like to think i've gotten better than the uneven pockets plaguing those shirts. this time i hunkered down and spent way too much time aligning all the plaid, but i think it was worth it. you almost can't even see the pockets! awesome! i haven't gotten to the buttons yet, but you get the idea.

and since i made ethan a shirt, i thought i should have a new one too. i've been meaning to make it for a while; in fact, the fabric is from 2 years ago. it's my same shirt design, but i added ribbing wristbands, and snaps. score. looks like this is my winter shirt of 2011.

wormhole!

2011-01-02T17:36:00.001-05:00

i finished the pattern for the next quilt today. it's going to be a quilt depicting a wormhole docking station. i found a great image of the wormhole that i think is from star trek DS9. i watched a lot of star trek TNG growing up so it's nice to be able to pay tribute to that in some way. i toyed around with the ships at the docks; they were a lot bigger, but the scale was wrong compared to the size of wormhole that i wanted to represent, so i ended up making them really small. the only problem is it'd be a nightmare to try and piece the ships into the black background. i hate applique, and i'm really not satisfied with the way applying fabric with fusable backing looks, but i'm going to have to work with it.

i've settled on fusing the ships to the black background and then outlining them with a zig zag stitch to hide the raw edges. i drug maureen out of the closet to test it out, but i don't know if she'd make it through all of the ships, so i'm thinking about buying a second machine. just a basic one that i can do those very specific things on. velma is great, but she can't do zig zags or button holes, and ethan bought new fabric for his 2011 shirt, so i'm gonna have to put buttons on that anyway.

iapetus megapost!

2010-12-28T10:04:00.004-05:00

despite all the posts to the contrary over december i have been quilting. it was a commissioned piece, and a surprise for the recipient, and therefore i couldn't give any updates on the blog. but they've received it and i can now show all the details. the commission was for a quilt of saturn's third largest moon, iapetus. the second pic is the pattern, then the whole top layer all stitched together, and finally the finished quilt. the whole quilt is machine quilted, with just a little hand embroidery thrown in for extra highlights. i especially like the way the machined craters came out. check out the whole finished quilt and detail shots over at jimmymcbride.com!

best gift ever!

2010-12-27T11:05:00.000-05:00

ethan and i did our gift exchange and he got me the best christmas present ever. it's a 2001 space odyssey monolith action figure! the box even says: "zero points of articulation!" amazing. this thing's going in the studio right away.

embroidery sketches

2010-12-19T17:16:00.000-05:00

making the quilts requires a lot of prep work time in the studio, as well as a lot of time while quilting, ultimately giving me a lot of free head space to both expand the story of the space trucker and also to work out other ideas. inspired by the embroidery i've started doing on the quilts, i've been trying to figure out how else i can use that technique for a while now, and have finally gotten around to making them. i made a couple of embroidery sketches of control panels. they're still in the idea phase and have a long way to go. i'm still working out all the details, but you can get an idea of what i've been thinking about lately.

my friend judith came over and gave me a great crit on them, and gave me some new ideas on how to flesh these guys out. there's still lots of questions though: how big?, what background color?, do i stretch them?, etc, etc...

aol artists

2010-12-15T15:40:00.000-05:00

last night there was an artist reception for the winners of the aol 25 for 25 grant, and yesterday and today we all taped brief interviews to be put up on the aol artists' site. it was really great meeting the other winners and some of the people at aol. so, of course, in honor of my public appearance i made a new shirt. here's a sneak peak. you'll be able to see it in action soon!

pickled eggs!

2010-12-09T11:26:00.000-05:00

it's that time of year again! every year for thanksgiving and christmas my family makes pickled eggs as part of our family feasts. growing up this was completely normal, and it wasn't a holiday meal without the glowing pink egg on the side of the plate. (snack time at grandma's house around the holidays meant a pickled egg and some cottage cheese.) since venturing out on my own into the world i have found that almost no one has heard of pickled eggs and mostly the response is revulsion at my telling, until i force them down the throats of friends and co-workers, at which point their derision turns to "they're not that bad."

i did a pickled egg post last year around this time, and it's time for a new one. here's the recipe. since i'm a pickle enthusiast, i even make my own pickled beets before hand, but to start off, i'd suggest just buying the store bought ones. (and yes, steven, you have to peel the eggs first!)

3 12 oz jars of pickled beets

1 16 oz bottle of apple cider vinegar

1 cup of sugar

1 dozen hard boiled eggs

combine the pickled beets (with their brine), apple cider vinegar, and sugar in a lidded container. mix well until the sugar dissolves, then add the eggs to the party. leave in the fridge for about a week. enjoy!

phobos V2 finished!

2010-11-30T19:45:00.000-05:00

just got phobos V2 done and i think it looks awesome! i really like the way the hand embroidery looks around the crater rims. check out the full quilt and more detail shots at jimmymcbride.com!

details

2010-11-20T17:45:00.000-05:00

just got all the quilting done on phobos. the actual moon is hand quilted and the background is machine quilted. now i'm starting to embroider highlights on the crater rims. i like the idea of including lots of different types of sewing/needlework into and onto the quilts. i think from here on out i'm going to have all the quilts incorporate as many different elements as possible.

bodega bags

2010-11-13T17:13:00.000-05:00

i've been making these bags for a couple of years now. it's simply a regular plastic bodega bag that you get from the corner store, that i cut apart, made a pattern, and then made out of fabric. these have become my primary grocery/everything bags; they're strong, cheap, fit in your back pocket, and washable. i started making them for the restaurant i work for to carry deliveries in--to replace the hundreds of plastic bags we go through a week. much to the owner's chagrin, they often disappear, so i replenish them every once in a while. one of the delivery drivers told me that some of his delivery friends from other restaurants wanted to know where to get some, so i've made a batch and they will be available at B's bikes in greenpoint for $5. get 'em while they're hot!

on the quilting front, the hand stitching has begun on phobos. i'm planning on machine quilting the black background, but haven't decided what kind of pattern it's going to be yet.

phobos pieced

2010-11-11T14:14:00.003-05:00

just got phobos all pieced together. i'm pretty happy with the results--much happier than the original. i want to do a combination of machine and hand quilting, and also embroider some highlights on the crater rims, but i haven't got all the details worked out yet.

i had an interview with a freelance writer over the summer and she was writing a piece for embroidery magazine. embroidery's a great contemporary needlework magazine based in england. when it showed up on my door this week i was totally psyched to find out that not only did they give me a 6 page spread, but they put me on the cover!!!! i'm on the cover of a magazine!!! fuck yeah! thanks to everybody over at embroidery, and if you live in england, go pick up a copy!

mola fail

2010-11-03T19:15:00.001-04:00

well, while typing the first post about mola, and describing it as like applique in reverse, i thought to myself "but, i hate to applique." ...and suspicions were confirmed. i started out with good intentions, made all the layers of colors, and pinned averything, but once i started cutting and sewing that first edge, not only did i realize that it was going to take forever, but i also think that the technique would be a nightmare to implement with the image that i'm starting with. good intentions, but you can't win them all, right?

so, i cut my losses, numbered all the pieces, and cut everything out for a regular quilt top. only problem is, because i wasn't counting on piecing the top together the usual way, a lot of the pieces are miniscule, and it's going to be all hairpin turns on the sewing machine. it's going to be a different kind of nightmare, but i think it'll come out pretty cool.

25 for 25

2010-10-28T19:07:00.004-04:00

in honor of aol's 25th anniversary they held a grant competition to find 25 artists, writers, and creative thinkers and award them each with $25,000. i submitted my appilcation about a month ago, and i got the call yesterday that i was one of the lucky chosen few! amazing! i can't thank them enough for this opportunity. this is going to allow me to really focus all of my energy into being as creative and productive as possible. check out the other 24 winners here!

in honor of the grant, i thought it was about time for a new artist picture, so i made a poncho and and got all dressed up for it. i think it turned out pretty nice!

phobos V2

2010-10-25T17:10:00.002-04:00

back to work!

i was never really satisfied with how the original phobos quilt turned out so i've decided to remake it. phobos is one of mars' moons. instead of being circular, it'll be on a rectangular quilt and i'm going to use a technique called mola. this one's going to be a first for me. the mola technique was invented and is used by the kuna indian tribes off the coast of panama. it's a way of showing up to 7 layers of fabric by cutting away each layer and folding it under to reveal the color beneath. it's sort of like reverse applique. they make clothing out of it, but i thought it might be interesting to see what it would look like as a quilt. learn more about mola here and here!

lost (and found) in space

2010-10-22T17:25:00.004-04:00

just got back from oslo and it. was. amazing. the show looks great and ethan and i had a great time at the opening reception. it was nice to finally meet stina, the curator, and anita, the project manager, in person. (i have been in contact with them for a year.) the show is jam packed with lots of great work, so if you're in the area i highly recommend checking it out, duh.

the day after the opening there was also a lecture by patrick gyger, the director of the museum of science fiction, or "the house of elsewhere", in switzerland, about the art of science fiction. awesome! you can check out his museum here: maison d'ailleurs

i heard through the grapevine that there was talk of the princess of norway getting a private tour through the exhibition as well!

...and, if you missed it (like i almost did) i was featured in an article written by alan boyle about a contest that etsy and nasa are putting on, on his cosmic log blog on MSNBC! you can check out the article here. nasa and etsy are teaming up for a design contest to celebrate the shuttle era (which is coming to a close soon.) winners are eligible for a $500 shopping spree on etsy and an all expenses paid trip to the launch of the next space shuttle! for more information click here!

oslo!

2010-10-13T10:36:00.003-04:00

the day has finally arrived! oslo, here i come! i'm off to oslo, norway to go to the opening of "take me to your leader! the great escape into space" at the national museum. wish me luck!

also, a special shout out to the good people at dailycandy. they featured my space battle pillow shams on their site yesterday and my etsy store got 1000 hits!

wrappin' up

2010-10-08T15:09:00.003-04:00

starting to wrap things up and get things prepped for oslo. i made a new shirt to wear to the opening of the show: "take me to your leader! the great escape into space" at the national museum.

also, my friend eliza wants to be a giraffe for halloween and i wanted to help her out before i left. i made the head and i think it turned out pretty good.

horse hats

2010-10-05T17:29:00.002-04:00

a local bike builder here in brooklyn saw my hats at b's bikes and contacted me. thomas makes awesome handmade custom bikes under the name horse cycles and wanted a small run hat line made for him. they're mostly wool, warm and soft, and screen printed with his companies name and logo. check out his site here: horsecycles.com

october done!

2010-09-27T12:05:00.002-04:00

just got the cargo blanket with the october night sky done! in the southwest part of the sky you can see orion! (the red lines are photoshop) you can see the whole quilt here!

also, i just spent the better part of this morning redesigning the layout of jimmymcbride.com. i think it's much more easy to navigate now, and kind of makes more sense. hope you agree.

star time

2010-09-24T19:04:00.001-04:00

just got the blanket portion of the cargo blanket quilt done. next step is to sew all the stars on the front, the view is of the northern hemisphere's october sky.

artprize!

2010-09-20T10:35:00.003-04:00

alright everybody! let's get out the vote and win me "best in show" at the artprize competition. if you're in the grand rapids, michigan area for the next three weeks come on out, register, and vote me "up"

artprize is "a radically open competition. open to any artist in the world who can find space... open to a vote from anyone who attends." basically the whole town gets involved in hosting this competition and anybody who shows up to look at the work can vote on a winner. i'll be showing "R136" and hosted by the cathedral square exhibition center at 360 division ave. s

this link will explain all the voting ins and outs. after you register, you can vote me up by texting 45011 to 808080! the show opens wed, sept, 22nd and runs through sun, oct. 10th!

science sunday

2010-09-19T18:17:00.001-04:00

science sunday went off without a hitch at the hudson river museum! thanks for everybody that came out to see me talk. marc taylor of the andrus planetarium helped me put on a great show and even showed me (and everyone else) where the images from my quilts came from in the sky.

i got to display "jet" in the area just outside of the planetarium. the second pic is from the interactive part where kids helped me construct a felt mural depicting the jellyfish nebula.

october sky

2010-09-17T20:18:00.001-04:00

i just sold my first "design your own cargo blanket"! the request is for brown backing fabric and the october night sky.

this is the start of the drawing of the lines that will eventually become the diamond pattern on the cargo blanket.