Archive for the ‘Scientific Inspiration’ Category

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28.8 A warm finish for a cold day

December 7, 2012

exothermic quilt only binding leftI actually finished a quilt.

THE QUILT.

The quilt of my obsessions for the past year and a half!

A double sided quilt. One with highly pieced and planned side, and one with a devil may care attitude and piecing.

I took the week off which gave me the courage to finish the last borders on the quilt back (one of which is completely hacked off on the finished product, but hey, I knew it would happen, and then finally rent the long arm again.

I have been starting to populate flickr with pictures of my Exothermic Wonders Quilt, a double sided warm color quilt that has a fall / halloweeny feeling, without actually getting cheesy about it.

Regular blog readers and listeners may have heard about this quilt before, and after this, I will move on to other things.

A quilt for me!!

The Back of this quilt (free form)

exothermic back finished

Some close ups of my pantograph called samurai.

quilting close up on back

And I also have quilting on the front of the quilt!

quilting close up front of quilt samurai

And this is early AM putting the binding on the quilt!

attaching binding to quilt

And I did it myself too. My 2nd quilt I’ve ever had on the long arm (ripped the zippers from the one I had 3/4 the way done.

I rented the long arm from Quilted Memories, and Lyn remembered who I was as soon as I walked in the door! What a great thing, and something I poorly needed!

And because of all the detail in the posts I had taken this spring (see part 1 & part 2), I had hardly any downtime trying to figure out how to work the machine the 2nd time. Even after 7 or so months away!

And because I was being silly, I thought this shot was pretty nifty!

looking through the deck

Today is a grey cold day, first cold day we’ve had in over a week. This winter is turning out to be another hot / dry winter like it was last year.

Bonus is that I’ve already got my christmas shopping done as well! Off to play for the rest of the day!

Posted in Finished Quilts, Home Sewing Front, Quilting, Scientific Inspiration | 14 Comments »

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25.4 Deciding The Next Step for My Periodic Table Quilt

May 5, 2012

Since this is on the “finish a long list” I am trying to accelerate my thinking about this quilt that frankly needs to sit in time out for a while.

My Periodic Table – Periodic Spiral quilt to be more exact.

This is going to be the future quilt’s location. Now all the white is needleturned (glued first) and now I have to decide if I like it. I am not a fan of needle turn as I never seem to get the best line of stitching as I can when I glue over freezer paper.

However, putting the quilt up here made me think a few things.

  1. I want the words “The Periodic Spiral” to hover above the quilt.
  2. I think I want an explanation of the groups down below done in embroidery.
  3. I want something to block the needleturn edges from the background. Some kind of trim, embroidery or something.

While I was at Hancock fabrics the other day I was looking for some multicolored ric rac or similar.

But I found some interesting black or white or black and white trims.  I bought some black ric rac that in 2 days I have already misplaced somewhere.

But this intriguing black and white braid, which I like love, but is a little thick, and really doesn’t navigate around the curves all that well.

But I worry with this trim that it either takes away too much or detracts too much from the original design. It completely flows around the design.

And then yesterday while at Micheal’s I was looking at beads.

So I thought of these metal based beads.

And then the opal ones.

And I saw some carbon looking beads too thinking of how maybe I could get some different types of things to represent the different types of elements on the table, non metal beads, metal beads, something to represent gas forms, liquids.

Possibilities.

Head spinning, but only purchased the small square metal looking beads, but didn’t get enough to go around the entire design. Even if I add the opal ones together.

And then there’s another white based cording that I was considering outlining a darker area that I would do the embroidery on.

I bought some silver pearl cotton 5 floss and see the potential for twilling (our area’s hot hot hot embroidery design with knots) the types of elements.

But I am trying to preview this on the entire design because I opted out of getting the black only cording for the missing black ric rac.

…

And then there’s the lettering.

Also while at Hancock’s I found some sparkly fabric. With optical illusions set against black. And you know I like optical illusions in quilts!

so I cut out one letter in this shiny sparkly fabric.

And yes too much.

Problem with the letter is that I would also need a trim or something around the outside of the letter to separate the highly patterned letter from the highly patterned background.

So I’m wondering if I starch the snot out of this slippery shiny sparkly fabric if there is anyway in the world I could make bias strips and outline a darker color of letter.  Like make a black or dark blue letter with thin, shiny, sparkly bias tape edges.

Or I could always bias around the edge of my periodic table with the sparkly fabric bias tape. Now there’s a thought.

But honestly sounds like a lot of work. Wonder if I’m up to it.

AND I still have to print out on fabric my “key” for the spiral to make it all make sense.

Posted in Chemistry, Home Sewing Front, Scientific Inspiration | Tagged , | 4 Comments »

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16.2 Periodic Table of Sewing by Scientific Seamstress

June 9, 2011

I totally failed to mention this wonderful periodic table of sewing in my periodic table episode a couple of days ago.

Carla of the the Scientific Seamstress fame (must be something weird about people with the names rhyming with ‘arla’?) has put together the periodic table of sewing elements.

Keeping the symbols of the elements the same, Carla has found some cute replacements for elements!

I particularly like Ne (neon) for Needle, and Sr (strontium) for Seam Ripper, and Mg (magnesium) for Magnetic Closure.

Check out her science/sewing lab on this post where there’s a link to a larger printable version of the image!

Posted in Chemistry, Other Crafty Scientists, Science, Scientific Inspiration | Tagged , , | 2 Comments »

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16.0 Now THAT’s a planet!

June 7, 2011

I occasionally get Craftster updates and this time I saw this wonderful patchwork planet.  From the Froglin Faffing blog.

Reminds me of me, where the planning goes one way, and then at the end uses pure luck to complete it.  Nice graph, nice organization, I love squishies with a purpose.

What’s best?  Most fabrics are from her stash!

Posted in Other Crafty Scientists, Other Fiber Arts, Scientific Inspiration | Tagged , , | 2 Comments »

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15.8 SQ Episode 026 – Periodic Table Spiral Quilt

June 5, 2011

Podcast Feed

Ever since I saw the image from Periodic Spiral, I’ve been in love with making this periodic table quilt.

Here’s a PDF of the image of the Periodic Spiral, and here is the link to the Periodic Spiral website.

I can see this exact image as an art quilt posted on a white or black background.  Lots of scrappy choices.

Or each arm could have different colors representing the similarities of each type of elements.

At the beginning of the podcast, I discussed the change of the atomic radius (size of the atom) as shown as trends in the periodic table.  Here’s a visual to what I was trying to discuss.

If you want to see a dot diagram of atomic radius as discussed in the beginning of the podcast, click here.

Further clicks on this link will show more interesting periodic table views of atomic properties.

At the end of the program, I referenced Inkscape, a vector program that can draw lines and curves beautifully.

Here is the image I copied, and the image I created.  Close enough to worry?

Quilting design lila from Sweet Dreams Quilt Studio

Oh:  Follow me on facebook Scientific Quilter, or Twitter @scientificquilt

Posted in Chemistry, Podcast Episode, Science, Scientific Inspiration | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments »

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14.3 Hoping with the Stars

March 27, 2011

Even though my sleeping problems are still as crappy as they were a week ago, this weekend turned from ‘grumpy monkey’ to ‘hopeful’.

I honestly shouldn’t be around anyone else when I am in grumpy monkey status – thus the week hiatus.

It appears that hope is coming in the form of having a choice, when a week ago, I wasn’t even aware of this choice being available.

But now we have a plan in place, so even if the hope from this weekend doesn’t turn out to be good, a backup plan is in place, which makes me settled, and less grumpy.

That being said, if things happen one way, then this blog/podcast might go even more quiet for a period of time while the dust settles.  If it goes the other way, I should be able to find the time for you all similar to how I am finding time now.

Clear as mud?  Good.

….

Enough personal life.

…

Meanwhile, I’ve been on the search for the perfect fabrics for my next quilt, which was referenced in a past post.

The ‘pink quilt’ uses atypical fabrics, which again intrigues me.  Which may be a good departure for me.

And I am learning more and more about EQ7 once I finally settled down into it.

Here is the original block for my pink quilt, castor and pollux, without all the lines needed to paper piece it.

And here is a fabric set that I’ve been debating and debating over, with all the available choices for each fabric.

Considerations

  • The color hue of the lightest set (on the far left) is the most desired in the middle fabric, but the top fabric has silver sparkles! The one in back has lighter lights (which is desired), but also darker darks (not desired).
  • My favorite two choices for the ‘medium periwinkle’ color are the bottom two, one of which is a fabric that I’ve already used before in my mini black baltimore quilt.  The dark one is electrifying, but almost too dark, and the fabric on top is what I purchased for this quilt, but still wasn’t grabbing me as ‘me me me first!’ as I walked out the quilt shop.
  • My favorite color choice for the ‘medium pink’ is the one on the bottom that has all the little tiny flowers on it.  My only concern is that the lightest lights of this fabric will be too tight and too noticable.

And the dark pink is just lovely!

I am leaning heavily toward THESE colors, although I suspect I could be happy with the other variations too.

So I played around with EQ7 and my images of my fabric seen here as fabric scans and I put all into EQ.

My scale doesn’t exactly match up due to how I ‘scanned the pictures’.  How did I do this?

  1. I took pictures of the fabric,
  2. opened the picture in photo shop,
  3. got the right color/saturation etc
  4. highlighted around the fabric in question,
  5. Copy
  6. New
  7. Paste
  8. Merge Down
  9. Save as (fabric name)
  10. Open the project in EQ7
  11. Libraries
  12. Fabric Library
  13. Import
  14. From Image Files
  15. select image
  16. Open
  17. Add to sketchbook
  18. Work on block
  19. Add color to block
  20. Find the picture in EQ7
  21. Color the block
  22. Save to sketchbook
  23. File
  24. export Image (to show all you)
  25. Work on quilt
  26. Set block
  27. Chose block
  28. Click the tiny triangle on the bottom to get the other color
  29. Set the block in the quilt.
  30. All of them
  31. Set colors for borders.
  32. All of them (missed very outside border here)
  33. Save quilt to sketchbook
  34. File
  35. Export image (to show all of you)

The lightest fabric still is a little dark to my taste.  It may turn out okay though.

Now I’ll have to work on the block and see.

Posted in Computer Manipulation, EQ7, Scientific Inspiration | Leave a Comment »

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14.0 Quilting ‘Actual Stars’

March 17, 2011

A couple of days ago on my personal facebook page, I posted a design I had happened to see on an antique geometric website.

The name of the block intrigued me, Castor and Pollux.

Two ‘actual stars’ known by western society as the two brightest stars in the constellation of Gemini, which have some Greek Mythological roots.

I then decided to tackle EQ7 again, downloading the Castor and Pollux picture from the website above:

and superimposing this picture onto a 10 by 10 grid.

Tackling EasyDraw again, I came up with a very pink variation of the block, and gave myself something that I could paper piece (in theory).


My final version of this block actually has more lines than this (from what I can see here, it’s not putting all the lines in to show the paper piecing version.

Here is my printout of the block, black and white (no color ink)

And since each block is four of the same ‘sub blocks’, here is a sub block printout with notation.

 

And I thought of a quilt pattern for this block.

So 4 subblocks in a block, and 16 blocks in a quilt.  This is definitely a Long Term Project!

If I decide to do it.

Posted in Computer Manipulation, Physics, Quilting Design, Scientific Inspiration | 1 Comment »

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12.1 Because I am tired of white

February 12, 2011

The beginning of the snow season two months ago, I reveled in the patterns created by the light and the snow and the deck.

Then in January, I delighted in seeing the presence of tiny visitors in the snow.

But now in February, this snow has seemed like a prison!

Luckily, a massive heatwave is coming to get rid of all this white on the ground.

(which this actually isn’t all that bad compared to two weeks ago)

Until the heatwave here is some leaves that are ending their photosynthesis lifespan, revealing some wonderful colors underneath.

Love the arch on this picture!

Posted in Biology, photography, Scientific Inspiration | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

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11.8 Help me get into Geek Craft Blog

February 6, 2011

I made cookies for breakfast yesterday (fun) before having to go to work (on a saturday – not so much fun!), but in doing so, I think I crashed myself with all that sugar.

I have been a little sleepy as a result.  Yawn.  No sewing, nothing but cleaning out my inbox.  Yuck.

… Anyway, is there any possible way I could ask for your help?  ….

A week ago I submitted my “Make it Sew” project to Geek Crafts (about page here) to be considered to be uploaded on their blog.

I received no reply, and no mention of this on their site … yet.  I am hoping there is just a long waiting list of projects.

I don’t know why I have wanted this to show up on their site, but somehow I do!  Perhaps it’s not cool enough?

I mean, how much more geeky can it get … you have star trek – a science fiction program, AND you have science, in a cute pun of scientific spectra – “dilithium spectra” (well 2 lithium spectra anyway).

I have already submitted once on my own, but if anyone else would like to help, here is the submit a geeky craft link to their site.

And just put in the following text for the website: “http://scientificquilter.wordpress.com/2011/01/29/11-2-fixed-it-and-more/” and say how geeky and cool it is.

If you decide to help, thank you.

If not, I’ll just go along with my geeky self here.  Thanks!

- Darla

Posted in Home Sewing Front, Physics, Quilting, Scientific Inspiration | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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11.4 Lost and Found again

February 1, 2011

Okay, I was trying to do a Monochromatic Color challenge because when I stumbled upon Judy’s blog, Patchwork Times in January, I was intrigued by the idea to make a monochromatic quilt. 

Of course, so is Scraphappy of SoScrappy doing a Rainbow Scrap challenge.

New year, new idea, let’s play along.  Okay, actually, I wasn’t going to play along until I found out the colors of each for the month of January.

Patchwork Times’ challenge = yellow

SoScrappy’s challenge = blue

I have loads of blue (well compared to some of the other colors I have), and hardly any yellow (or orange actually), but maybe I would like to try one of these challenges.

I was in a funk, the weather is cloudy and cold in January here, blue is the last color I want to remind myself of in this dreary month.

Okay, would it even be possible to find light and dark colors of yellow so I could participate?  THAT is the challenge. 

Yellow, for me, is just one of those colors. 

You see a piece of ‘bright’ yellow and you automatically think (incorrectly) that bright = dark.  Not true.

I was able to cut my fabrics into 2 1/2 inch strips and then take a black and white picture to see the values.

 

It turns out I actually didn’t own any really light yellows, and one of the yellows in the dark range has a little green twinge.  But I still have some contrast.

This is the project I decided to find Quiltville’s scrap project page, and looking down the long list of possible scrap patterns I found the Strip Twist block.

This block lends itself to high contrast, so I figured that it would be good for monochromatic purposes.

I then saw my butterfly picture on my calendar, and I was all set.

Scanning the butterfly into the computer, printing out the outline, tracing around the outside of all the yellow pieces, fusing them down with fusible onto yellow fabric, cutting all the pieces out, I stuck it in a baggie, was very proud of all the work I had done.

Then we went on christmas vacation.  In January.  During the first really large snow storm in our area. 

I thought, “OH, I’ll need to take this with me to fuse it down in the hotel with the iron to have something to do when I wake up very early”, I’ll just put it <here> before we go”.

And we were on vacation 3 weeks ago. 

And for the last three weeks, I have failed to find the <here> place I put the pieces.

So I had the perfect spot for the blocks, made them (one being backwards), decided that two blocks were enough for where I wanted to place this quilt.

 

And then …..

Couldn’t move on because of my lost butterfly.

I spent all day this past sunday cleaning up my room including going through my neglected scrap basket and organizing my scraps.

Finally last night, I found the butterfly.

So here it is, monochromatic color quilt, fused with the butterfly, but not completed.

Time to go back it and quilt it.

I need that to brighten up my day, ’cause there is a heap of snow a comin’.

Posted in Home Sewing Front, Scientific Inspiration | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment »

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