The Belly of the Whale

I couldn't resist this nod to the New Wave song by Burning Sensations (old-school video here).  I'm almost certain that I did not hear this on the radio at the time, but I came around to liking it from hearing it on a few compilations that focused on the early days of New Wave.  I don't recall the video, but I may have seen it once or twice.  By the time we had MTV on a regular basis, they would have moved onto other artists.

Anyway, I have been busy sewing.  I made a special figure that spells out RTP (sort of an in-joke at my work).  I'm fairly proud that I thought through how to sketch this out and put it together without any mistakes.  Basically, you have to do it in mirror-writing, since the entire thing has to be turned inside out.  Here it is right after the cutting.  (I also added some black lines to make it clearer that the letters were separate.

It was sort of a close thing, since what I had not taken into account was that to fully reverse the letters, the 'P' had to be pushed through the crossbar of the 'T'!  One thing that I have to get better at is just leaving myself enough room to work.

This came out reasonably well, but it was too small, particularly when trying to stuff the bottoms of the letters.  Even giving myself another half inch for all the "legs" would have helped a lot.  Well, next time...

I do find animals to be much easier to guess how they will turn out.  I have made a stuffed whale for a co-worker's daughter.  It was fairly simple, though perhaps I should have sewed the smile by hand rather having the machine do it.  As it happens, one side is considerably happier than the other side.

Here it is in its final form.

I did debate putting on a spout or even making a black dot on the top for the blow hole, but I am not really going for realism here...

In terms of remaining projects, I think I will make a fish or another whale for another friend's daughter.  I will make one elephant from a dress shirt sleeve (well, pair of sleeves).  If it comes out well, I might make a second one from the second shirt I cut up.

Then I will probably attempt to make pajamas for the kids (there may be a bit of a learning curve there trying to deal with the elastic waistbands).  And finally I will start cutting up material for these quilts.  So quite a few projects, though I would say they are generally something I can do in a day or two, so that I can see the progress.  The quilt is such a big undertaking that it will take a lot longer to feel I am making any headway.