G[r]eek Alphabet - Y is for Yggdrasil

I've talked about this before but Yggdrasil is the world tree, a figure from Norse mythology.

This was going to be a composition with lots of greens and earth tones. I did debate whether to have a bright tree on a dark background or vice versa, but with some back up opinions I decided to stick with the dark tree on a slightly lighter background.

This following was testing out the colour for the letter Y (white) and the snake (greeny yellow).

I had looked up some deer pictures for colour reference but I decided that I needed a contrast and I couldn't face such fine hemming so I used some fake leather that wouldn't need hemming for both the tree and the deer.

Final debate was about the width of the letter Y. Mostly I've used this type of ribbon at full width but when I laid it over the tree, you couldn't see the tree either side.

 So instead I decided I would use it half thickness.

 This is an early stage of sewing down. The tree is partially sewn down, the tree also, the deer are started sewing and the snake is in progress.

 Snake completely sewn down, I'm on to the details! One of the things you can see from this picture to the next is that I've used embroidery to slightly tidy the outlines of the snake, specially at the head and tail. This was to smooth the outline which was hard to create while sewing down quite a thick snake.

 One of the things I decided late on was that the slight leaves embroidery was too bright. I decided to over sew with darker colours to tone it down. The squirrel, part of the original design was debated a bit as to whether I wanted to include it in such a busy design, but I decided I wanted a squirrel so I put him in. The raven however, did not make the cut.

Mythology Spot

For more lovely info on the mythos of Yggdrasil try this great article Norse Mythology : Yggdrasil and the Well of Urd.

In summary of the details I've included.

• The squirrel is Ratatosk - a messenger animal
• The snake is probably Nidhogg, a snake who gnaws at the roots
• The deer are two of the 4 that spend time in the tree. Their names are Dain, Dvalin, Duneyr, and Dyrathror. There wasn't room for 4 deer - sorry.
  

G[r]eek Alphabet : X is for Xena, warrior princess

I am well aware that I have followed to powerful women one after the other, but firstly I love both the characters, and secondly, you try thinking of some decent things for X! X-men would have been nice but the logo was quite what I wanted. ANYhoo...

So, Xena, yes, well she is kind of ace. I decided since she dresses is brown leather and I had some brown fake leather I would use it. I knew it would be a challenge but I really wanted to do it.

I tried to get Xena's clothing details vaguely right, so I had some of my usual picspam to help me (thank God for Pinterest).



Because it's hard to sew through fake leather (or real leather, I've never tried) and also tough to sew through multiple layers and other stitchery, I decided I would have to carefully pin things in place and sew through the leather first rather than sewing down the X, then the flesh of Xena's head and arms and then the dress as I would normally.

It had all been so much easier when I used the leather for the A for Athena

Xena does look a lil freaky with no hair but that's cos I couldn't be bothered to use fabric and decided to embroider it instead, ditto the sword.

I had intended that Xena's wrist cover would just be embroidery but in a fit of crazies I decided this would be too complicated and switched back to some more of the fake leather. Embroidering through 2 layers of fake leather, plus cloth (2 ish layers for the X and backing and interfacing) was challenging but fortunately it was a small area. Next I was on to the dress embroidering, followed by the arm bands and chakram, then the X and hair and face.

Final detail which I nearly forgot was the sword being carried on her back. Something I've just realised is I've accidentally put it over her right shoulder, making it easier to take out of its sheathe with its left hand. Mind you I'm sure Xena has done sword fighting with both hands and I'm a leftie also so tough!

I'm now slightly panicking about the more complex design for Y. Don't panic!!

G[r]eek Alphabet : W is for Wonder Woman

Some of you may know I've had some concern and care to make sure there is decent female representation on my alphabet, but we're coming to a small concentration now with Wonder Woman followed by, well, you'll see soon enough.

Anyhoo, first realisation was that the basics of the costume have varied a lot and so have the specifics.

Picspam alert!

See? I'm limiting myself a bit these days

Anyhoo, my first indecision was the background colour. Initial plan had been green like F, but I was debating dark navy blue, like the Tardis letter T. But I wasn't sure. I wanted to have a play while at work so I used my PicsArt App to draw onto the photo of the design to test out these options for contrast and design.

Although I like the blue and it would have been more of a piece, I decided that actually green would make the design pop a bit more. I also tried out 2 fabrics of green before sticking with my original choice. For this reason I made most of Wonderwoman as a single separate piece so I could lay her out on the two colours of backgrounds - a bit like with Icarus for the letter I (although that was positioning not about background testing).

As we've mentioned I just went with original green.  From that point it was pretty quick. I sewed down the W through Wonder Woman as part of sewing her in place. The yellow was an obvious choice for the W - to echo the gold on her costume.

Then I finished off the details. Cuff got sewn on, headband got sewn on, Shorts got sewn down, and the decorative embroidery - red star in the headband, gold detailing to corset, stars on the shorts all got added. Late on due to some slight shifting of fabric during sewing I found the neck had got a bit rumpled so I put some stuffing in behind the neck and shoulders  (and face) to disguise it.

Belatedly I realised I'd missed some tiny bits sewing (under her left arm) and not sewn in the magic lasso of truth! Can't leave that out!

I am a huge fan of this character and I love that her origin story (not comic book) but her creator, is about a male feminist's determination to give girls and women a good role model!

In my head as a classicist she gets crossed with Athena who started our alphabet and they have their similarities as Greek women who are wise and warriors.

G[r]eek Alphabet : V is for a certain vampire who likes to count

Definitely a Sesame Street vibe going on here people!

I'll keep the picspam count low this time!


The count was gradually built up in layers.

The first layer was the white of his shirt, because I knew it would be coverd by the opera cloak and the edge of the face I sewed it down as part of sewing down the cloak.

I forgot to photograph the middle stage : which was sewing down the collar. Then I sewed down the face and embroidered on the hair and features.

Next stage was the V. The original design had the head on top of this but I'd forgotten and I didn't mind that it didn't happen in the end. The V is two layers : one yellow and one very transparent green. This wasn't actually enough. You can see through the two layers to the shape of the count's shoulders but I don't mind too much because the V is still very clear.

With all the details done, one incomplete vampire ah a aaaaa, two incomplete vampires ah a aaaaaaaaaaaa, 3 incomplete vampires ah a aaaaaaaaaaa, FOUR vampires!

Thank you to the friend who suggested this, it was a great idea. V was a tough one as I didn't want anything scary like V for Vendetta. Or too obscure like Sherlock Holmes' violin.

G[r]eek Alphabet : U is for Unicorn

There were a looooooot of pictures in my last post, mostly not of sewing. I guess that's the way the cookie crumbles dear reader.

I will only picspam you once therefore. When I put together the fabric for this design I had this image in my head. It looked a bit like this, only green instead of red:

Anyway my friend says - that's gonna be waaaaaay hard. Only she hadn't seen the base fabric so she didn't know I didn't have to do the background. Bwahahaha!

The curve of the U took quite a few pins but as the unicorn was basically one piece of felt that didn't need many pins. Huzzah! By choosing a transparent silver, I had to double layer it with white underneath or the silver would have dulled on such a dark fabric.

I also had to fight with the fact that, as it was such a close colour match I decided to use my silver metallic thread - a thread which is basically thread wrapped in medal. It is very annoying to sew with but I got through it!

I had originally planned to use two light yellowy creams for the shading and the tail but despite looking very different on their own, Once I'd sewn them down, they looked identical so I had to switch for a darker colour, but there wasn't much left.
This next picture is me contemplating the last of that embroidery thread in that colour and wondering what I do to match the mane to the tail.

But I'm not just a pretty face...or maybe I am not that pretty you don't really know. Anyhoo, I solved by discovering that a pinky colour I'd used for some skin colours was near enough, if a bit pinkier.

Result! I also added in a tiny amount of gold stitching just for decoration into the mane and tail.

It's come out pretty darned alright I think!

G[r]eek Alphabet : T is for Tardis and always knowing where your towel is

So howzat working out for ya? Two very nice SF references in ONE square of fabric, I''ll admit I'm pretty pleased about it.

My first debate was as usual a colour one. My original colours for this square were :

Background : Navy blue (quite dark navy)
Tardis : Royal blue (slightly light one)
Towel : Pale blue
Letter T : Undecided

While the three blues all blended together they blended a little too well really for good visual clarity. I want these designs to be very straightforward to read, for a child to read. I want them to be able to see the letter and to see what the pictures are.

So I immediately thought I would bring in some bright colours, the towel became red felt, and the letter T became bright yellow. Admittedly this was also not a stretch for me, I love yellow and will take any excuse to wear it or use it.

The next thing I wanted to think about was related to some interactivity I had hoped and planned to add into this square. Most of the squares will be simple designs sewn on, but some of them I hoped I could add things that open or other aspects. I'd managed to add in an opening lid to the luggage already. Here I wanted to make the Tardis have openable doors. But if they doors are open, what is going to go inside them?

I sent out a distress signal on Facebook, Twitter and Blogger. I warned people of the spec. This is a very small space. Much as I'd like to put your favourite doctor, I'd be hard pressed to fit him in recognisably in a space 5.5cm x 3 cm. 

Some of the serious and less serious suggestions were :

• Screwdriver (sonic one assumes)
• Tiny smurfs
• Fez
• Swirly time vortex
• Stars
• The baby's name in Gallifreyan
• Console room (which one)
• K9
• Doctor Who logo
• The word "run"

My favourite was probably the stars but to fill the inside of the Tardis with more dark in a design already having blue on dark blue I felt was not going to work. So instead I went with a golden colour.

I did debate doing a 10 or may be 11 style console room in part.

But ultimately there was just too much detail to be realised.

I also did debate the baby's name in Gallifreyan thingy. But I just didn't quite fancy it although learning Gallifreyan was quite fun.

Then I decided it would be spirally time vortexy. I was stuck with the yellow goldeny colour by this point. And I had a bunch of things that went through my head.

Not least the Van Gogh episode (s5 ep 10 "Vincent and the Doctor").
But also the scene where Rose, having looked into the heart of the Tardis is all shiny and full of Tardis knowledge (s1 ep 10 "The parting of the ways")


I was a bit frustrated by failing to find an image of Rose looking like this with more than just her head and shoulders in view. But I don't think I'm missing any useful swirly-ness so never mind.

I also looked up for time vortexy pictures that were more yellow/reddish spectrum

But this was totally a retrospective justification.

Sorry about the pic spam but this is I'm afraid my creative process, stick with it.

When I started making the Tardis I had some technical challenges to stop the doors being too thick and the edges not fraying, so I cut a large blue ribbon in half and used the non fraying edge as the inside edge.

I also had to simplify the design as I began to see it was just too much to fit in all the details. To keep me relatively accurate, e.g notice on correct side, right number of panels, I used more images as reference:


By this point I'm sure you're begging me to show you the darned sewing!! So OK, I'll give you something alright?

 Mostly at this point it looked messy. To keep the brightness of the yellow ribbon I had to put on two layers of ribbon : pale yellow under bright yellow. At this point I thought I'd test out my Picsart app's draw on a photo thingy and make sure the red towel would work, plus see how giving the Tardis a white outline to make it pop a bit would work.

 

There was obviously a lot of tidying to do and slight adjustments. One of which was the realisation that the top bar of the T had got too high and when placed correctly would come very low over the Tardis, So after some debate I put the Tardis lamp OVER the letter T.

I also decided that the towel would flap freely below the railing. And what about the inside of the Tardis?

Swirly space spiral! I had debated having black stars but decided they might not be clear what they were and look like weird dots or odd shapes. All in all it came out pretty darned well.

But what about the Towel? What's that all about?

Ah my dears, nerd fails on your part. This is a Douglas Adams Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference. One should always know where one's towel is. At all times.