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Finished!

Then, one day I stumbled upon this awesome art/type poster collection site called typographicposters.com, and saw a piece of work by the artist/designer Benoit Bodhuin (snarky note: I can’t link directly because it’s a flash site! *boo*), and the idea for this duvet cover was born. I did some fabric research, found some fairly thrifty cotton broadcloth fabric in solid colors from fabric.com, and got started in translating the graphic style of the posters to fabric form.

Since all the shapes are right-triangles, it’s fairly easy to recreate as a sewing/quilting pattern. I created a new Adobe Illustrator file, then made a grid of 3 inch squares, each square divided diagonally across both axes. From there, I filled in each part of the grid accordingly (see printed out version below)

plan mocked up in Illustrator, then printed out with each sewing block outlined & numbered

Next, I had to figure out how much fabric I needed for each color. This is probably the trickiest part, since you have to not only figure out how much yardage you need according to the design, but also factor in seam allowances and how to cut your squares to maximize use of each yard. Rather than try to do some fancy geometry maths, I just guestimated how many yards I’d need, and ended up running out of gray fabric toward the end (when I reordered, the gray was a slightly different hue than previously, so try to avoid this if at all possible). The finished size of the duvet cover needed to be 88″x88″, to fit the queen-sized comforter I already had. Since cutting and sewing so many little squares together inevitably leads to variations in my finished size by up to an inch, I planned to leave room around the edge for a white border that I could size accordingly once I had the bulk of the work done, to arrive at 88 inches exactly.

Everything after this point is just hours and hours and hours of cutting, measuring, and sewing. I really hate the cutting part, because not only is it super tedious, but it’s also the part where I’m most prone to slippage of the hand, uncorrectable errors, and wasted fabric. Having the right tools is extremely important, especially a rotary fabric cutter, and quilting ruler. Since I hate cutting so much, I decided it would be best to get it all done at the outset, kind of like eating brussel sprouts on your plate first so that you can enjoy the mashed potatoes at the end. I took a look at my design plan, then tallied up the amount of each size and color of fabric piece that I would need.

Fabric cut pieces tally

Finally after all the fabric was cut, I started piecing together smaller blocks according to their block number in the plan, then pieced those blocks into bigger blocks, and so on until I had the finished front of the duvet cover. I measured and added a white border to the outside, then quilted the whole front (without batting (padding)) to another piece of fabric, to hide the seams. Finally, I sewed the back of the duvet cover on, with buttons on the end to slip the comforter in.

Fabric needed for each block, as a guide and checklist

I couldn’t be happier with the final piece, and am totally excited about new variations on solid color patterns that I can make in the future – but it might be a while. After over 80 hours of planning, cutting, and sewing, I’m not about to jump right in again! All things put in perspective, those serious quilting hobbyists are crazier and more dedicated than any WOW player, in my book.

Download the large version (2000 px square)

Combined seasonal posters

]]> http://www.thefourthstar.com/2011/02/seasonalpromotional-posters/feed/ 0 http://www.thefourthstar.com/2011/01/js1k-xmas-demo-snowflake/ http://www.thefourthstar.com/2011/01/js1k-xmas-demo-snowflake/#comments Sun, 02 Jan 2011 23:17:15 +0000 Cara McKinley http://www.thefourthstar.com/?p=384 Disclaimer: this post may be something that only a serious internets/javascript/web dev nerd can appreciate. Starting in the early days of software development, the ‘demo’ has been a way for a developer to show of his/her skills within a limited file size. In the summer of 2010, a javascript 1kb demo challenge was held to showcase the mad skills of participating developers, with a focus on using HTML 5′s canvas. If you’re slightly unfamiliar with technology, 1kb of file size is really small, like 1,024 characters small. In a word document, that would be the equivalent of a couple paragraphs.

Some of the demos created by participating developers are crazy impressive for being such small sizes. There are a lot of hacks and tricks that you can use to reduce the volume of code, including but not limited to compression with tools like Google Closure Compiler, creating one-character aliases for frequently used properties, defining multiple variables in one statement, and doing really naughty things like leaving semi-colons off of the last statement in every block. Each little bit(or byte) that you can shave off adds up to a lot in the end. For a really great walk-through of the first js1k challenge’s winning demo, see Marijn Haverbeke’s work.

The first JS1k challenge was a big hit with the development community, so a second competition was held during the holiday season, with a Christmas theme. I entered a little snowflake-maker demo – simple, but weirdly addicting. Click around on the white ‘paper’ wedge to draw shapes. Click on your starting point (noted with the little gray dot) to close a shape. Make as many cutout shapes as you want, and then click the button to make your flake! My original source code is below the screenshot (once compressed, the code is <1k).

My snowflake creation.

Source Code: (Click to expand)

In keeping with the flourishing-type motif established by the Studio Mathewes logo, I created these two hand-drawn type illustrations for use on greeting cards or in email correspondence.’Ever After’ belongs to a note celebrating the anniversary of a wedding, and ‘Many Thanks’…is fairly self-explanitory.

'Ever After' anniversary greeting

'Many Thanks' thank-you card

Closeup of the beautiful letterpress work