Fawxy the Firebird Quilt

I became a member of the Imperial Officer Corp (IOC) Firebirds end of last year.  It's the female officers group of the 501st.  We adopted a phoenix as our logo and I just go the logo t-shirt (it's awesome).  A couple years ago I started a Fawkes the Phoenix quilt from a pattern I bought a quilt show.  I didn't quite like the fabrics in the kit, so I changed most of them out for a really fantastic fiery yellow/orange fabric and a really nice blue background (the original had black with odd white square dots on the sides).  So, after a couple months of talking about the quilt on the Firebird forums, I decided to change the name to Fawxy the Firebird.  I might remove the falling feather and replace it with the Firebirds logo.  I still have lots of work to do, like sewing down the edges (I love satin stitching, but I think I'll use a random zigzag to make it look fiery), doing some thread painting (I have three different red/orange/yellow variegated threads I bought as a 3-pack), and add an awesome eye.  I'll finish it sometime next year.  Now to figure out a cool quilting pattern (as soon as I learn how to use my longarm quilting machine).

MSDroids Group Pic

Just to have this for a URL, this is the MSDroids group pic from DCC 2014.  We look sooooo snazzy in our polo shirts, don't we?

The new Ball Droid (dubbed the Hamster Ball Droid) from the EPVII trailer....

Some thoughts on the first trailer.  I'm still saying WTF on that Hampster Ball Droid.  The guys over at www.rebeldroids.com are in the same boat as I am.  We don't consider it an astromech R2 unit, but another odd-ball droid (get it?).  I really don't want to make this one, unless I bring it to a Broncos game (look at the colors).  I'm still on the fence about this one.  I might make a financial killing if I sell a bunch of these as bobble heads for dashboards.

The big oversized bike the female is driving is ridiculous!  How can she see over that thing?  It's way not safe and has no resemblance to bikes like the speederbike was.  And she's wearing shorts in a desert environment on a fast bike type thingy!  OUCH!  That's gotta hurt!  One fall and no skin on legs left!

I like the X-wings, Falcon, and Tie Fighters.  Until you really see inside these ships.  Bare to the core, oversized, and no magic to them at all.

The sith is going to be great, but what is that thing he's holding?  You call that a lightsaber?  It's directly from some King Arthur/Knights Templar B movie!  A broadsword with flames?  Come on!  SW meets Ren Faire?  Not liking it at all. 

At least there's no lens flares, and I think the story will be strong.  I'm just not liking the FX just yet.  Still not convinced this will be spectacular, but it will be Christmas 2015 fun! 

Until next time,
Jawa Jaka (say, how many of those round thingys can I sell?)

MSDroid Club Shirts

The MSDroid club polo shirt arrived at my front door this evening.  Boy, that was fast shipping!  They look great and feel soft.  Don't they look nifty?  We're going to look great at DCC!

 

Speaking of DCC, I'm working really hard to get everything ready, including a visit from my brother the same weekend.  I think he wanted to spend some time with me, but I'll be pretty busy during the con.  I did score him one of the last Saturday only tickets (DCC has been pretty much sold out for a month now).  There are still a few Friday and Sunday only tickets left and three (count 'em - 3!) weekend child passes left (they may be gone by now).  Anyway, back to cleaning out the guest room.

 

Until my next update,

Jawa Jaka (soft shirt, warm shirt, little ball of shirt...)

 

Continuing the ANH IN Tunic Tutorial

First off, I want to let everyone know that my emotions are all over the place.  Tuesday at 9:30am I helped my vet release my beloved Smokey from her pain.  She is now over the Rainbow Bridge playing with all her friends in heaven as only cats can.  RIP my “Little Girl”.  Mommy wuvs you.



And we’re now back to this tutorial as promised.  Give me a couple weeks to finish (I hope).   I can dedicate a little more time for this project.

We left off with the front panel of the tunic, and now we’ll add the right side and inner panel. 

First, lay out the front panel with L on the left.  Measure the long raw edge of R. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now cut a rectangle the same length as the measured R side and 9-10 inches in width (or more, depending on your girth).  Then whatever method you choose (I used an old shirt pattern) draw the armhole and width of side.  You’ll have to fudge with this so the front panel folds over the inner panel properly (it will become clearer later).  Label this piece RS.
 

Sew RS to R along the long edges.  (Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the end result.)

 

We’ll now set this piece aside and go onto the inner panel.  This is basically the exact same inner panel as the IOC uniform, but without the dosimeter pockets.  The piece looks like this.

Never mind the black threads, I have used this piece in a couple officer uniforms.  Notice the pinned area towards the top.  Normally this is where the dosimeter pockets are but I’ve pinned them shut.  Tip:  make sure the short edge of this piece is the same length as the short raw edge of RS.  There are several websites that will show you how to measure for armholes (or use and old shirt pattern just for the armhole measurement like I did).  The best way I can describe this piece is to go to ChazTorad’s tutorial as mentioned on the first post.  Remember to take out the dosimeter pockets as the whole piece should be flat (thus my pinning the pockets close).  If you have difficulty visualizing this please pm me and I’ll try to walk you through it.  This piece will be behind the front panel (again, it will become clearer later).

We’ll now move onto the skirt sections for these two panels.  Sorry to do this to you, but you’ll probably need to take apart the front panel if you’ve sewn it together, or unpin if you pinned it together.  We’ll start with the front panel skirt.  Here are the total pieces of front panel and front skirt.

You’ll be cutting four rectangles the same width as the front panel pieces.  The length will be about mid-thigh.  Keep checking in the mirror for correct length as you build this section, checking with reference pictures.  You don’t want it waist high or an evening gown.  It’s kind of an attached mini-skirt (very mini).  Give yourself at least an inch to the length for hemming (more if you want to experiment a little).

Now, align the skirt strips with the panel strips as shown above.  If you have any quilting experience you’ll understand the next step.  It’s basically what we quilters call strip sewing.  Sew the skirt strip to L, then skirt strip to M, skirt strip to R, and skirt strip to RS.  You now should have four long strips that look like this.

 

 

Now, sew L to M, M to R, R to RS all the way down the long edges.  Of course, once again (I think that’s twice) in my haste I forgot to take an end result picture, but I think you got the idea.

For the inner panel, use ChazTorad’s tutorial once again.  If you already have an officer uniform it will be the same.  I can’t remember if his tutorial has the same small flap that extends, or if I came up with it, but there is an extended flap about two inches (allows for hemming and/or lining)  for the waist snap. 

Tip:  this part of the skirt flares out a bit but not too much.  You’ll have to fudge with this to see what works for you.  I have what I think is a nicely rounded butt, so I had to make this part fit over it (yeah, I’ll call it fat butt, it doesn’t bother me).  You might not have so much of a flare, or maybe a little more.  Whatever you do, don’t make a square dance swing skirt out of it.  The skirt should just barely lay flat on your body with just enough flare for walking without binding.   Again, keep checking yourself in the mirror and compare to reference pictures.   We just call it a skirt for easy reference, but it’s really an extension of the panel.

 

You now have front panel and inner panel with skirt sections done.  Between the two will be the back section, which we will discuss in the next post.

 

 

 

 

 

 

NEXT:  We’ll move onto the back, side seams, and back skirt sections.  I do want to remind everybody that once you have all this sewn with muslin and fitted just right, you’ll have to take out the seam ripper and take it all apart.  These will become your pattern pieces, so don’t cut your black gabardine fabric yet until we’ve gone through the tutorial with muslin.   

Until next time,

Jawa Jaka (cuddling with teddy bears because she misses her Smokey)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introducing King Arthur!!

I've been working on a mouse droid since Christmas after collecting some parts over the summer.  I guarantee it's much easier to build than an R2 unit.  This is a fun little project with an RJ series race car chassis, a full-scale shell, and lots of IC chips that I pushed into a perf board while watching the Super Bowl.

A little backstory to his name:  a friend of mine called it Arthur, thinking that the PBS kid show was about a family of mice.  It took me a few days to realize what he was talking about.  No, it's a family of aardvarks.  But I like the name Arthur, and since he's full sized, I renamed him King Arthur (KA for short).  I then went to work on some cool graphics for racing stripes.  I came up with Excaliber with flames coming out.  I know I have some work to do with it (I just printed it on plain paper in color, cut out the image, and taped it on).  I want the sword to be longer, the flames to wrap around, and have it a vinyl sticker (not taped on).  For what I did in a couple hours I think it looks pretty good.  He probably won't win races, but he'll sure look good trying!

King Arthur



The Flaming Excaliber



Don't you just love his blue mouse tail?  It's the receiver antenna.

 

Until next time,

Jawa Jaka (playing with her mouse)



 

New banners and name

Foolish phb forums won't let me post pics directly from my laptop, so I gotta post everything here then copy and paste the URL of my pics.  Silly really, but not much I can do.  Men design the strangest coding and make life a little complicated.  OK, enough of my rant.

What I really want to post is that I'm excited to finally recieve the new MSR2 banners, cards, and... MAGNETS!  Yes, magnets for special people (like ultra fans and members).  And we changed our name to Mountain States Droid Builders (because we can, and because we have R2's, R4's, mouse droids, gonks, and one heck of a Droideka!!  So, drumroll please....  our new cards (banner and magnets are the same, and I got a blue banner with reversed colors):

 

 

Pretty nift, huh?

Until next time,

Jawa Jaka (enjoying the new banners and cards)