Cashew's Photo Quilt

Background: So my best friends Matty and Cassie are having a baby. With all the rage of celebrity monikers, I decided to combine their names and call them Cashew as a couple (Cassie + Matthew), cause they are both nuts! Boom tish. Now the awesome name has been passed down to their unborn babe. Or as Manuel calls it 'our baby'... Meaning his and Matts baby... Cause they've 'been together' for more than 10 years now............ 

Back to now: Cashew had his/her first grand party - a baby shower - over the weekend, and although still in utero, he/she partied like it was soon to be his/her birthday... probably.... I mean, there's no way of knowing for sure.

So I wanted to made the present to end all presents - A photo quilt featuring pictures of Cashew's family. Babies fucking LOVE quilts......! Right??

Here's what you need:

1m canvas material (to print pictures on at the screen printer - I used 8 photos).

1.5m x 2m material for back - I used gingham cause it's totes my fav for quilts.
1m x 1.5m wadding.
Lots of different quilting fabrics.
Sewing machine, scissors, cottons etc.

Because we don't know the sex of Cashew, I couldn't do it blue or pink themed, so I decided to make a vintage style quilt so Cashew can feel like a hipster baby - everyone will want to Instagram the shit out of him/her.

I scored all these awesome vintage quilting fabrics from a fabric store. Cut the pieces of material into squares about 12cm x 12cm (or however big or small you want them).

I started by mapping out where I wanted each square to make sure the patterns were evenly distributed, leaving space for where I would put each screen printed photo.  It just makes it easier to power through the sewing part.

Start by joining each square together in their horizontal rows making sure the seams are on the right side.

 Double stitch everything and zig zag stitch the edges as well so it doesn't fray or come apart. And ironing all the rows helps. I used Manuel's new $90 pink iron that is super masculine... and it worked a treat.

Once you've sewn each row, sew the rows together one by one until you have a quilt! Sew the quilt on to the wadding leaving a border. The backing material is then folded over and sewn as a border around the finished quilt panel. Like so.

I got the photos screen printed at a place in Carindale but it wasn't the size I wanted so I had to stitch the fabric photos onto quilt squares to incorporate it, but it still looks cool. Feel free to use photos of your own family though as it would just be cray-cray if you used these pictures.... Here are just some of the pics.

 Mum and dad!

 Baby Matty!

 Baby Cas! On the toliet with floaties so she doesn't fall in. Rofl-copter.

 Aunty Kate and Uncle Manny

Matty testing out and clearly loving Cashew's quilt. Feat: finger from Manuel....

Beautiful Mumma Cass (minus a ham sandwhich) beaming with sheer delight at her new family heirloom guaranteed to be passed down to future Howland generations. You can always stitch on more photos for the years to come!

Can't wait to meet Casheeeew.

Tricky xoxo

Mustachio the Mexican guitar

My friend Matty recently got a job as a primary school music teacher and requested I make him a puppet to entertain the kids. So he created Mustachio (c) and as per his detailed description "He's a guitar whose strings all broke and couldn't be played anymore. So the kids teach him to sing instead and he lives happily ever after," accompanied with this picture of his vision to go by:

 

 

So I set out to create this generation's greatest children's entertainer which has since been described as "freakish, like he's too happy and on the verge of craziness - he will scare children," so all in all, mission accomplished! 

Here's how he turned out!

Materials:

2 metres of brown felt
30cm dark brown felt
Black, pink, brown felt
Brown fur for his mustache and brows

2 teddy bear eyes
White, blue and black paint, paintbrush.


First of all, draw out a guitar pattern on folded felt like so. That oven mit was just to gauge how far up you would need to stick your arm... He's basically the same size as a full-sized guitar.

You will also need to long strips of darker brown to join the two guitar panels together, flip the right way round and fill with stuffing like so. Add a black felt circle which will become Mustachio's mouth.

Dont forget to  leave an opening so you get elbow deep inside him. Line it with some more brown felt and hand sew shut. And yes, I am aware this looks slightly suspect. Cue giggles.

Add some beautiful ocean blue eyes - I've shown in previous posts how to make these. Make the eyelids with a bit of brown felt, otherwise he looks faaaar too starey.

Now add a mustache using trimmed fur fabric, and mould it with some hairspray into a curled handlebar style for that extra Mexican-y feel. Put a little pink felt tongue on his mouth hole as if he is singing "La la la laaaaaaaaaaaa Amigos".

Don't forget his eyebrows. I experiemented with their placement and found the height gave him a happier look and didn't make him look so evil. It did kind of give him an Italian vibe though....

You can add a nose too if you want. Or you can leave that nose behind...

Matty was stoked with him. And I hope this will catapult me to best friend status so I win the stupid competition vying for the place of best friend. Manuel has only known him for more than a decade, but I made him a puppet dammit!

WHOSE YOUR BEST FRIEND NOW MATTY?!?!?!?!!?

Tricky xoxo

I call him, Happy Sandwich. But you may call him Mr Sandwich.

You have to be specific if you ask me to make you a sandwich. Otherwise you will end up with this:

I call him 'Happy Sandwich' because he is clearly happy to be the safest kind of sandwich, an inedible one. He is free to live forever without the fear of going mouldy or being eaten, that's definitely something to smile about, hense his slightly smug grin.

Here's what you will need:

- About six felt squares in various sandwichy colours

- Cotton and thread
- Scissors
- Stuffing

The entire thing has been hand sewn so no need for a machine.

Step one: Cut out 4 x bread shapes. Plus some lengths of brown felt for the crusts

Hand sew one length of the crust to the bread. Keep going all the way around.... 

Then sew the other side of the bread to the crust like so...

              

And then you have to flip it the right way out, whack a little stuffing in there to give the bread it's fluffiness, then finish the rest of the stitching to fill the gap.

 I know I wanted some kind of meat in there, so this was established to be some kind of devon slab, but you could create any kind of meat you wanted. Perhaps a nice pulled-pork, or ham, or even bacon strips!

Time to build the sandwich. This project makes you especially hungry for a sandwich. Add some cheese. The orange felt looks like Old English.

                                Add some tommys, for colour.

                                Some lettuce for greenery...

Followed by another piece of bread following the directions for the first few steps. Stitch each layer together as you assemble the sandwich, quite roughly, as noone will be able to see it, and so it doesn't fall apart when someone inevitably picks it up to eat it thinking it is indeed a real sandwich due to it's uncanny likeness.

Put a little smiling mouth and some eyes and you have your very own Happy Sandwich! Yay!  

View from the side: Does this bread make me look fat? Sidenote: If you have to ask that question to begin with, than yes, you are too fat. If you were skinny, you'd be hungry and you'd be asking for a sandwich...

Looks cute, although it serves no real purpose and will probably just sit in your spare room gathering dust......

 

Or you could give it to a homeless guy instead of money for booze, and he can trail it around behind him on a leash or something equally as crazy, cause that's what bums do.

                                                                   Om nom nom.....


                                             Tasty... And I'm sure the sandwich is good too.....
Tricky xoxo

Guest Blog: Featuring the artwork of Loose-legs Lawson.

My sister Tricky has asked me to be a guest on her blog this week.  I don’t have a cool nickname like ‘Tricky Hickson’ so… call me… Easy Lawson. No that won’t work…

Anyway, I’m going to show you step-by-step how to paint a portrait using soft pastels.

To create this magnificent piece of art that will hang in your parent’s hallway proudly, and for which you will most likely only get paid in the form of a sushi lunch with your mum, you will need;

Conte Paris Pastel Pencils

Art Spectrum Soft Pastels

Faber Castel Sketching Pencils

Eraser

Photo for reference (unless ridiculously talented you can do it from memory only)

I chose to draw our beloved Daschund Neuman. Although he’s no longer with us, this drawing captures him perfectly and pays homage to adventurous life he led. It might be creepy if you painted my dog so feel free to paint your own beloved pet, family member or celebrity crush. Or you could combine two of those things and paint Robert Cattinson:

First start off by sketching a pretty detailed outline of your subject. This is by far the most important stage and can make or break your final piece if you don’t spend enough time perfecting it. So don’t fuck it up!

Once that’s done, you can begin colouring with the pastels. Pastels are essentially like chalk but they can be smudged and blended to create a smoother finish. I like to start with the eye area because it really brings the subject to life. (Unfortunately, not literally. RIP). The most important part of the eye is the pupil and the reflected light which can be achieved by a quick swipe of pure white over the pupil.  It gives the eye more dimension. If the dog you’re painting is also black, or your painting a person with black hair, make sure to not just use straight black. Mix in some blues, tans, yellows, browns and skin tones where necessary. Keep checking back on your photo for reference.

Work your way around the ears. See all the different colours in the hair that I’ve used? This also applies to painting humans. A blonde girl might have whites, yellows, creams, umbers, greys or even blacks in her hair. It would never be a straight colour. The strokes should obviously go in the same direction as the hair would. The good thing with pastels is they can be smudged and mixed on the page, and you can rarely fuck it up because you can go over the top of it as many times as you like. Good news for novices!

I’m working my way through the picture in a logical order of the direction of the hair to keep it all flowing naturally.

Almost finished. While the painting could be finished here, I like to go over them at the end with a white pastel and highlight any areas that are hit by sun or light. Also to draw in any grey hairs or whiskers or any finishing touches.

And voila! The painting is complete. And I’m very pleased with how it’s come along. Give it a decent spray with hair spray to set and it’s ready to be framed.

Here is a super close up of the eye area to show you what pastel looks like close up and how much detail goes into each piece.

My guest blog post might not have been as lol-worthy as Tricky’s normal posts but I hope you found it informative enough to go and pick up a pack of cheap pastels from Stacks and give it a go! Or not be pov and actually fork out for some proper materials from an art store. Either way, good luck my fellow artistes!