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My Dandelion Quilt - Bear Paw

6/11/2021

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The names "bear paw" and "bear's paw" seem to be in free variation, both when I search online or look in Rosanne's quilting books, and in my own writing!  For the sake of this blog, I'll try to stick to "bear paw", but the other option is equally correct.  It's a nice representational block: it looks like a stylized pawprint.  Compare some actual pawprints with the block:
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The paws and prints of an American black bear and brown bear, from The Grizzly Bear; the narrative of a hunter naturalist, historical, scientific and adventurous (1909) by William Henry Wright
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Mini Bear Paw Quilt Block with Sashing, photo by sk (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/)
The quilt block bear is missing a toe, but otherwise it does look like a pawprint, and it is commonly used in rustic quilts for that backwoods feel.  I like the block for my Dandelion Quilt because, if done in greens, it looks like the leaves of a plant whorling out from a central stem. 

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My Dandelion Quilt - Pieced Dandelions

5/25/2021

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Finally, I get to piece my dandelions!  The block I've made for this is a modified Blueberry Pie quilt block.  The modifications are that I add stitch-and-flip corners to the inside square (to give the appearance of more "petals", and remove the half-square triangles from the corners (to make the motif rounder instead of square).  I also choose to do the outer petals all with half-square triangles, instead of flying geese or more stitch-and-flip, because I think the extra seams will contribute to the multi-petaled look of a dandelion. 

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My Dandelion Quilt - Sky and Wishies

5/23/2021

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Once my dandelion quilt design is done, I start sewing it from the top, since those are the simplest blocks.  The sky, which is mostly blue, or blue nine-patches with wishies (dandelion seeds aloft), offers little to blog about, so I'll also use this post to describe fabric prep, the way that I document my cutting and double-check my measurements, and a few early mistakes. 

PREP WORK

Tossing a color-catcher in the wash with it, I wash, dry, starch, and iron the fabric.  I re-calculate the cuts I think I'll need to make, and made a spreadsheet to keep track of them, intending to take notes and fix mistakes along the way so I'll end with an accurate cutting guide. 
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Wishies!

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My Dandelion Quilt - Design

5/18/2021

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Picture
Anonymous illustrator, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dandelion-Seed_Tailpiece.png
In April, shortly after finishing the Organized Chaos quilt-top, I cast about for another pattern, but soon realized that I wouldn't be satisfied creatively unless I designed my own.  I decided on a dandelion motif. 

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Draping a Sloper Bodice (sans sleeves)

1/6/2020

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All my travails with fitting the sleeve/armscye of the Red Fox Vintage dress make me realize I need to understand better how these things are supposed to work.  I can't use the Red Fox Vintage bodice as a sloper if the armscye is screwy, can I?  So, after over five years of sewing clothes, hacking patterns, and altering things, I am ready to make my own sloper so I can make patterns that are right from the start. 

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Draped Pencil Skirt

8/17/2019

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Wow... so I'm a terrible sister.  I draped this skirt for my sis in January 2018, and haven't done anything since then (yes, over a year)!  Sometimes I  find myself with half-finished projects which I want to have done, more than I want to do them!  Terrible. 

However, as it's been a while since I posted, let me show you the in-progress pictures and explain what I did.  Normally, I switch to present tense for the project diary, but this project was so long ago, and the way I did it is not how I would do it today, so I'll stick to past tense. 

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Crazy Yellow Skirt (2015-2016)

6/14/2018

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My preference for the color yellow was established early in my sewing adventures and soon led to a bag full of yellow scraps that I didn't want to throw away because of ill-considered thriftiness.  (Not all thriftiness is ill-considered, of course, but I had three trash bags full of scraps in my closet before I realized I wasn't saving; I was hoarding!)  So I fished out the scraps I would use for this project, and then gave the rest away on Freecycle to someone who did crazy quilting. 
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Dress FAIL to Skirt WIN

3/22/2018

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Here hangs a disappointing project from my early days of drafting patterns.  The problem is the bodice, which I listed among my failures in this post, but the gist of it is that the wrap top never hung right, and it looked worse after each washing, and was hard to iron.  Such a shame! 
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I was at least pleased with the buttonholes and the cool buttons!
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Ahsoka Tano Cosplay - the dress pattern

9/25/2017

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So, as promised on August 21st, here I begin the chronicle of my Ahsoka Tano cosplay commission!  Though it's all done now, I wrote this project diary while working on it, so expect present tense throughout. 

Ahsoka Tano is a Star Wars character in the movie The Clones Wars and in the animated TV series.  She is a figure in Anakin Skywalker's younger years: he mentors her when she's a young Padawan, before he becomes Darth Vader.  My client C. wishes to dress as her for the Rose City Comic Con.  This requires, at minimum, a costume including a dress, belt, and gaiters.  Other accessories are the gray tights, armbands and gloves, headdress/hair, et cetera.  Our time is short (what with work and all, I only have five full days to work on it between the start of the project on August 20th and the due date of September 8th), so the priority is dress/belt/gaiters.  In a pinch, C. can improvise the rest. 

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Hibiscus Circle Skirt (March 2014)

9/18/2017

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​I moved to Portland in March 2014, and one of my goals while in my new locale was to learn to draft clothes.  This circle skirt, made with brilliantly printed cotton with a hibiscus flower pattern, was one of my very first attempts!  Lacking a sewing machine, I hand-sewed it. 

Most of my early sewing projects have long since been consigned to Goodwill, in hopes that someone else will love them more than I did, but this happy skirt has been a prominent member of my closet since I made it!  When you're learning a new skill, it's nice to have an early success, to encourage you to keep going.

​One day in 2015, my friend Dwayne and I did a photoshoot, showing off my outfit and playing with his camera. ​ More recently, I took some pics of the hand-sewing and interior construction. 
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Picture by Dwayne Purcer / 2015

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    Karen Roy

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