{"id":12041,"date":"2011-11-29T07:06:32","date_gmt":"2011-11-29T11:06:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/?p=12041"},"modified":"2011-11-28T20:25:52","modified_gmt":"2011-11-29T00:25:52","slug":"kitbashing-a-quilt-pattern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/?p=12041","title":{"rendered":"Kitbashing a Quilt Pattern"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Two<\/a>“Kitbashing” is a model-building term which refers to using pieces of commercial model kits to create a new custom design. More generally, it can be thought of as adapting a commercial pattern to one’s own ends: The pattern manufacturer does all of the heavy lifting with regard to measurements and construction details, so it’s much easier than designing something from scratch.<\/p>\n

For those of us with darker sensibilities, it’s a splendid way to turn mainstream patterns into something a little more appealing.<\/p>\n

A case in point is this quilt, McCall pattern M6096<\/a>. I used it as-is to make a quilt<\/a> for a co-worker’s baby shower. And then I used different fabric and slightly altered the appliques to make a Halloween version<\/a>. Muuuch better.<\/p>\n

The applique background fabrics and small quilt squares were all dug out of my absurdly large supply of novelty Halloween scraps; if you have better self-control than I and don’t buy far more Halloween-print fabric than you need, you can probably find the small amounts needed for this project in your local fabric store’s clearance bin.<\/p>\n

The applique sea life shapes were turned spooky with just a few alterations (click to enlarge):<\/p>\n

The fish became a Jack-o’-lantern by removing its fins and adding a stem, leaves, and some simple facial features. The stem, eyes, and nose were cut freehand, and the leaves were cut from the pattern meant for the crab’s claws.<\/p>\n

\"Pumpkin\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The crab was turned into a bat by cutting the body and head as one piece and then cutting two more pieces from the head pattern and scalloping the bottoms.<\/p>\n

\"Bat\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I did wind up cheating on the octopus-to-spider transition a bit; the original octopus pattern was so blobby that adding extra legs just made it look weird and asymmetrical. I eventually drew spider legs until I got one I liked and then traced eight of them around a central circle to make a pattern. I also stitched a simple spiderweb on the background fabric before appliqueing the spider on top: Just a few straight spokes connected by parallel lines.<\/p>\n

\"Spider\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A couple of other changes I made were to use my sewing machine’s built-in zigzag stitch to attach the appliques instead of the hand-stitched blanket edging recommended in the instructions; it’s a lot faster and it anchors the fabric much more thoroughly. I also used buttons for the spider and bat’s pupils instead of the teensy little black circles in the original pattern; those things are insanely difficult to cut out neatly and even harder to attach smoothly (if you’re making this quilt for a child small enough to possibly choke on a nommed-upon button you’ll need to grit your teeth and use the fabric).<\/p>\n

The rest of the construction was done according to the original pattern instructions, resulting in a wonderfully Halloweeny quilt with a fraction of the effort required to design a pattern from scratch.<\/p>\n

The next time you’re browsing patterns, keep an eye out for designs that you can darken down; it’s a wonderful time-saver.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Kitbashing” is a model-building term which refers to using pieces of commercial model kits to create a new custom design. More generally, it can be thought of as adapting a commercial pattern to one’s own ends: The pattern manufacturer does all of the heavy lifting with regard to measurements and construction details, so it’s much […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paint-it-black"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12041"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13002,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12041\/revisions\/13002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}