Glimpses of the Future: A Kite You Can Sleep On February 22, 2011

Why would you need a pillow kite? Because they’re awesome! Also, winter’s not the best time to fly a kite but the perfect time to cuddle with a squishy, fuzzy pillow decorated with chameleons, ribbons, Cars and Mickey Mouse.

 

Mer-Mer decided to make these kite pillows for her younger cousins. One loves the color purple, the other yellow. Both are fans of Mater and Lightning McQueen.

 

She started the project by cutting diamond shapes out of purple and yellow fleece. Since the kite would eventually be a pillow, she needed a front and back side. Mer-Mer made the front and back diamonds at the same time by folding the fabric in half and cutting out the shapes. 

Then she sewed two strips of ribbon on each of the diamonds in a cross-like pattern.

Because she had left-over fabric and because she wanted the back of the kite to stand out just as much as the front, Mer-Mer sewed chameleon cut-outs to each kite. Then she sewed the front and back sides together and stuffed them.

NOM!!!! I ate you.

 

Thanks, Mer-Mer. Anyway, for this project, Mer-Mer was working from a sketch she made in her notebook while she was supposed to be paying attention in class. Her professor talks in a very boring, monotone voice, and she can’t pay attention to it unless she’s sewing. The kite sketches she made in her notebook had tails, and these kites did not. They needed tails. The only question was from what?!

 

Luckily Mer-Mer had left-over Cars fabric and a Mickey Mouse remnant from JoAnn’s. To make the tails, Mer-Mer sewed squares in class. She made four for each kite.

She attached the pillows to the kites by sewing them corner-to-corner. This part shouldn’t have taken too long, however, Mer-Mer’s thread kept forming knots and breaking, causing great frustration.

 

Here’s the completed kites flying in the imaginary sky of Mer-Mer’s room.

Glimpses of Future: Valentine’s Day February 15, 2011

Muahahaha! I am here. But now I’m not. Here is Garritt.

 

So anyway, last week before dinner I spotted Mer-Mer drawing some triangles on construction paper. I said, “Is that a triforce?” After a few seconds she replied tersely, “Yes.”

 

Just to give a little background, the triforce is a symbol from a famous nintendo franchise called “The Legend of Zelda.” Mer-Mer and I like to play the games together, more specifically I like to watch her play, and when we get the chance to rename the series’ title character Link, we always choose the name “Gar-Gar,” short for my name.

 

After drawing the triforce, Mer-Mer drew a sword, Link’s weapon of choice. She said that the designs were for a pillow that would eventually be a present for her brother.

Trifoce and sword patterns

Work on the project continued after a stop at JoAnn’s for some fabric, which I helped pick out.

Our loot

Mer-Mer’s first step was to cut out shapes of the triforce and sword from the fabric using the patterns she had designed.

Check out Mer-Mer's awesome new scissors

Then she cut the triforce into pieces (sorry, Link).

After all the cuts, she ended up with individual triangles able to be pinned to the pillow’s base fabric.

She did the same for the sword’s blade and hilt.

After pinning, she got to sewing the pieces in place.

The sword hilt on the right looks dangerous. So many pins...

A view from behind

Here’s where the project gets especially interesting. Remember Link’s alternative name Gar-Gar? Mer-Mer thought it would be appropriate to sew the name onto the pillow meant for her brother. This is also the point in the project where Mer-Mer kicked me out of her room.

Mer-Mer used "Star Vader" font, the font used in the Star Wars movies

With all the pieces sewn in place — the shards of the triforce, the swords, the letters — Mer-Mer folded the base fabric in half, pinned the edges together and began to sew the pillow shut using green thread, the color of Link’s tunic. Before completely sewing the edges together, Mer-Mer filled the pillow with stuffing.

 

And here you have it, the finished product.

As it turns out, the pillow was never meant to be a present for her brother. It was a Valentine’s Day gift for me. What makes it worse, out of all our friends, out of the random people that  walked by to see Mer-Mer working on the project, I was the only one who didn’t know the secret.