Monday, May 20, 2013

Legend of Kitty? Zelda Cat? This quilt needs a name.....

Well, the front is done. The back is done. The quilt is laid out in the floor, ready to be basted and quilted. Whew! What a chore this quilt has been!

The front was not too difficult, until I did the colored gem stones (called Rupees) on the sides; I made them the wrong size at first, because I didn't follow directions. Oops. No problem, I recut the fabric, fixed 'em up, and used the mistakes to make small ones to go across the top as a little extra touch. Cuteness!
wrong-sized rupee pieces on the left, right-sized rupee pieces on the right

the finished front
the side borders are the right-sized rupees;
the top border is a mix of colored rectangles and the wrong-sized rupees
Then I had to hand draw and machine applique this sword. Apparently it's a major part of the game, is called the Master Sword, and has many variations depending on which particular Legend of Zelda game you are playing. My son wanted the version from Twilight Princess (for Wii), so we searched images and I drew it to the best of my ability and then cut and sewed and here it is. The Artist, age 12, is happy, so I'm happy.

close-up of the detail on the hilt/handle of the sword
I outlined the sword/appliqued by using a tight zig-zag stitch
then I stitched a straight stitch to mark all the detail lines of the handle
also shows a close-up of the top border - you can just see the rectangles/elongated diamonds

The back is also made to his specifications, but I don't think I'll do a 2-sided quilt again any time soon. I'm seriously fretting over thread color and such. I really only have one color thread available in the right amount to quilt a whole quilt, and it's gray; I'm not excited about the quilting lines showing up all over the back of the quilt, since the back is really a front, just put on the back. But, what can I do??? I don't know, so gray it is. I think the gray will blend enough into the cat portion that it hopefully won't be distracting. We shall see.

the back, angled body
I outlined the entire cat in a tight zig-zag stitch to give it a little more definition
the frame is made of assorted cat print fabrics
The back is a cat; I free/improv pieced the cat, partly out of necessity -- I didn't have a single piece of orange big enough to get the width I needed for that cat. The cat had to be big enough to make the flannel last for the whole quilt, because between designing the quilt & buying the fabric and then starting the quilt, my husband decided I should make the quilt for a full sized bed (which our son hopes to get upon our return to the US) vs. a twin sized bed (which he has right now). So everything had to stretch without buying more fabric, as I'd spent way too much as it was.

So, the cat was improv pieced, mostly using the techniques that Victoria Findlay Wolfe talks about in her blog & in her book "15 Minutes of Play."  Fun times, that! Since it was for the back, I really let myself be free and have fun, and I think the result is good.

The cat had started off squared up, we didn't like it, I peeked at the instructions and saw, oops, it was supposed to angle down, so I appliqued flannel over the body and WOW! what a difference that made! Woot! So then I just kept going with the face and the ears and the whole thing and had so much fun. It tossed all the measurements out the window as far as my EQ7 instructions, because nothing ended up "the right size" BUT wonderfully it did end up that I had exactly the amount of flannel needed to make it the same size as the front of the quilt. Whew! Thank goodness for that!
the cat, before I angled the body


So, now it's lying in the floor waiting for me to go baste the layers together and get quilting, but while I do that, a question for you --- what on earth can I name this quilt??? I like to put labels on with official quilt names, and somehow "Legend of Zelda Quilt" doesn't seem totally appropriate given that it's also a cat quilt. So....ideas??? Would love your comments/feedback!

If it helps, the front is modeled after my son's favorite video game; the back is a cat from one of his favorite book series, and also cats are his favorite animal as well. So -- name this quilt!



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