Friday, April 30, 2010

More nerditude

iPad Crazy
We went to the Apple store and after touching one it was pretty hard to resist.
iPad Crazy
And you can't have a slick new iPad without a nice little sleeve to protect it. Mine was 100% inspired by this sleeve, same as the nerd quilt.
Harv's is made from the sleeves and neckband from one of his many many Packer jerseys, one he was willing to part with.

PS The iPad is awesome.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

iNerds

I'm married to one of them.

A year and a half ago Harv didn't own a single Apple product.  He was stubbornly clinging to his past as a PC user and refused to give up his brick-like, 8 year old mp3 player (I think it was one of the first ones ever made).  Then I gave him an iPhone for Christmas and a love affair began.  A few months later when his laptop died he made the switch to a MacBook.  Then he finally realized there were mp3 players out there that didn't weigh 5 pounds and he bought an iPod.  His affections quickly snowballed and now he is one half of a little something called the North Hollywood Classic Mac Collectors Club.  I could try to explain what exactly they do but I think this sums it up quite nicely:
"Mission Statement: Collect Macs, Use Macs, Earn Friendships, Go to Thrift Stores, Explore Options"
About once a week, Harv meets up with the club's only other member and they while away the hours cleaning, fixing and playing with old Macintosh computers, most of which have been collected from thrift stores or Craig's List.
Now I love my iPhone and all but I have had no desire to get in on this action.  Until, that is, I came across this great iPad sleeve on Flickr.  I couldn't resist.

I made this as a gift for the club.  The apple is pieced into the background fabric using the 6-minute circle technique, slightly modified.

I traced the letters onto some lightweight fusible interfacing and ironed that to the back of the black fabric, cut them out, then machine appliqued them on.


As you saw yesterday, I made the label by using my laptop as a lightbox.  I swear to you, no harm came to my computer screen!  And even if a little bit of marker did make it onto the screen, a little rubbing alcohol would fix that right up.

And here it is in it's new home, surrounded by Macs of yesteryear.

Just so you fully understand the extent of the nerdiness here are some more shots of the club's collection.
 And some Mac art.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Labeling (part 2)

What do you do when you're lightbox has gone to bed for the night?
"Lightbox"
This is another trick I learned from Wendy, the queen of quilt labels.  A lightbox for the lightboxless.

Thursday, April 01, 2010

Labeling

Today I've been working on the back for the baby quilt from my last post.  I'm trying to make a concerted effort to label all of my quilts, at very least the ones that are gifts.  My friend Wendy, the secretary for the LA Modern Quilt Guild, gave a very entertaining yet informative talk on the importance of labeling your quilts at a recent guild meeting.  She actually had a family member leave a quilt on a plane that was later returned because it was so well labeled.  That's pretty impressive.
Label
For this quilt I'm using a technique I learned from Wendy.  I picked a nice font, typed up my label and printed it on paper.  Then, because I don't have a lightbox like Wendy, I used nature's lightbox (the sun) and taped the paper to my window with the label fabric on top of it and traced the text.  I used a micron pen (they're waterproof), then heat set it with my iron.
Label
I love that it almost looks printed, just enough to mess with your head, but so much neater than my regular handwriting!