Friday, May 17, 2013

Blogger's Quilt Festival: The Mad Man's Box, Part II

From Google Images

My entry for the Blogger's Quilt Festival resulted from a friend who spent all of my undergrad telling me to watch Doctor Who. For those of you unfamiliar with the show, it is the longest running sci-fi show and is about an alien who travels through time and space in a Police Public Call Box from the '60s called the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space).
TARDIS (found on Google Images)


For reasons unknown, I continually put off watching it. Honestly, I don't know why because my friend and I have similar tastes in television shows so it wasn't like I didn't trust his opinion. I just waited until this past summer to finally sit down and watched the show. What I really mean by that is marathon all six of the current season in less than 12 days with my younger sister. Yeah, we didn't have much to do that summer.

Anyway, the fact that we ended up watching every episode available in less than 12 days suggests that I kinda became a fan of the show. Well, there's really no "kinda" about it. I'm a huge fan as you've probably guessed from my posts last summer.

As such a huge fan of Doctor Who and a lover of nerdy quilts, I decided to try my hand at making a Doctor Who themed quilt despite only having completed three other quilts previously. After several hours of designing a pattern and some trial and error, the result was:

 
Isn't it pretty? :) I used Royal Blue Kona Cotton for the main part of the TARDIS, Navy Kona to distinguish the panels, White Kona for the windows, lamp and letters and Black Kona for the sign and first outside border. Legacy Studios fabric was used for the green border and the orange border. 

The design was inspired by the show in several aspects. I chose to have the TARDIS because honestly who doesn't want to own a TARDIS in some way? It can travel through space and time, and it's probably one of my favorite character's in the show. I love it when ships have a personality and let me tell you, she does! I also wanted to capture the idea of the opening sequence from the first four seasons of the show (and my favorite opening sequence for the show so far): 

From Doctor Who Season 1 Episode 1 (I do not own this image)

You can see that the TARDIS is traveling through a tunnel with green and orange-ish clouds over black space. I picked the faded orange Legacy Studios fabric to pick up the orange clouds and the green swirls Legacy Studios fabric to pick up the random bursts of green.

Finally, the quilting was also inspired by the show. This is best scene from the back of the quilt. 
https://mail-attachment.googleusercontent.com/attachment/u/0/?ui=2&ik=3494b3aa92&view=att&th=13eaffb39b3115dc&attid=0.12&disp=inline&realattid=f_hgsnh28z11&safe=1&zw&saduie=AG9B_P9NFv1ycV1avNp37VDrkhAY&sadet=1368766233032&sads=fizI_Nhon5kPO_hvK6yS7SesBEI 

The backing was a faded blue Legacy Studios fabric which I thought best provided the idea of space without stars and galaxies. Then I used gold thread to add in the stars and galaxies as you can see in the image above. While connecting to the idea of the TARDIS traveling through space, it also references one of my favorite Doctor Who episodes, "The Doctor's Wife," written by my favorite living author, Neil Gaiman. Without spoiling too much, this episode produced probably one of the most beautiful scenes in the series (or at least to me it is): 

From Doctor Who Season 6 Episode 4 (I do not own this image.)
Without giving too much away, the gold light flying around the control room of the TARDIS is in essence the TARDIS herself (it's weird but that's Doctor Who for you). Quilting with the gold thread to make stars and galaxies on the back produced an effect on the front which truly captures what I love about "The Doctor's Wife." 

 
I finally finished this last January, and it has been keeping me warm through the second half of season 7.  I love it so much! 
https://mail-attachment.googleusercontent.com/attachment/u/0/?ui=2&ik=3494b3aa92&view=att&th=13eaffb39b3115dc&attid=0.9&disp=inline&realattid=f_hgsnh28w8&safe=1&zw&saduie=AG9B_P9NFv1ycV1avNp37VDrkhAY&sadet=1368764871720&sads=pYzUYquDqBuq_VFa4cztppbxok4 

In fact, for the first few weeks, I walked around wearing it like a cape to show it off...


I mean, keep myself warm. It was a rather cold winter after all. ;) 

Quilt Measurements: 60in by 64 in
Special Techniques used: none
Quilted by: Me! With some help from Aunt with applique and binding.

Thanks for visiting my blog and hope you enjoyed my quilt! Hope you come again!

If you didn't come from the Blogger's Quilt Festival, you should go check out here:
Blogger's Quilt Festival! There are lots of pretty quilts!

Heather

In Which I Stumble Upon More Modernized Classics

Okay. So I just finished watching a TV series called Jekyll which first aired on BBC in 2007.
If you're looking for something interesting to watch, you should definitely try it! It was fantastic! It was created by Steven Moffat who also create one of my other favorite shows Sherlock and is also the current head writer for Doctor Who.

Similar to concept of  Sherlock, Moffat set the plot of Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" in present day. James Nesbitt plays the "Jekyll" character. Look familiar?
Well, if you've seen The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey then you might recognize him as Bofur the dwarf.
Now you're probably curious as to whether or not good-guy Bofur can pull off iconic duality of Jekyll and Hyde. Let me tell you, James Nesbitt can! He is fantastic. It's amazing how well he shifts between the two characters and makes you terrified of Hyde while extremely sympathetic to Jekyll. He does a spectacular job. I cannot praise his performance in this show enough. I can't wait to see Nesbitt in other roles. He truly is an amazing actor. 

Overall, Moffat really did a fantastic job with this series. If you are familiar with either his work on Sherlock or Doctor Who, I would say that plot-wise, Jekyll is  a lot more like Sherlock and his earlier two-part episodes of Doctor Who (not his stuff as head writer- honestly I don't think he does nearly as good a job as Davis did), i.e. he does a better job of keeping his plot together and pulling off those usual Moffat-esque surprises. It really is a brilliantly done show.

Most of the actors do a pretty fantastic job. There is the token American who is kind of pathetic, but whatever. Also, if you really enjoy dark humor, this show is definitely for you. There's a scene in Episode 2 that cracks me up just thinking about it.

The only unfortunate thing I can say about this series is that Season 2 is non-existent. It ends on a fairly decent wrap-up but I think Season 2 could have been pretty awesome. According to imdb.com, Moffat has written Season 2 but BBC refuses to make it which I find really sad because it really is an amazing show!

Hope you have time to check it out and let me know what you think!

Happy readings!

Heather

P.S. This show is available on Netflix and Amazon Prime!

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Star Trek Into Awesome!

As I mentioned yesterday, I was all psyched to see Star Trek Into Darkness at midnight.


 Let me tell you that the movie did not disappoint! It was amazing! JJ Abrams does a brilliant job yet again. It definitely lives up to his first attempt at the Star Trek franchise. The story was fantastic and there are several surprises in store for you on that front. Benedict Cumberbatch played an amazing villain. Everyone else did such a great job just like in the first movie!

The one actor that impressed me the most though was Chris Pine who plays Captain Kirk. He did such a fantastic job. Not that he wasn't already a great Kirk, but I think he really out did himself this time. His acting was amazing. He pulled off the part JJ Abrams wrote for him spectacularly. You are in for a treat, my friends. 

I'm going to stop here before I start spoiling it, which is a big NO-NO in my book. Anyway, I'll definitely be seeing it again! Hopefully, y'all be will be able to see it soon! Enjoy!

Until next time, happy readings!

Heather

P.S. If you're a Doctor Who fan, you should keep an eye out for Mickey! :) 

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

IT'S ALIVE!

By "it's", I mean, me. Apparently I survived my first year of grad school! WOOT WOOT! That is some cause for excitement my friend. Unfortunately, I don't know how much of my sanity has been left in tact (and given that I didn't have much to start with I'm not too hopeful) but I survived and that's what counts. 

Grad school has been an experience, my friends. There's not much time to do anything else but math. Not that I mind. I do love math but it's definitely going to be nice to be able to do other things (see list below). Okay. That's not entirely true. In case you didn't know, the proportion of television you watch in grad school correlates directly to how much stuff you have to accomplish in a given amount of time. The short amount of time and the more you have to do means you get a decent amount of TV watched. Not necessarily a good thing and I'm seriously hoping to break the habit next year but I does give me stuff to blog about now. I think that'll be part of my mission for this summer: find a more productive way to de-stress during the school year. We'll see how that goes.

Anyway, it's so nice to have a break that lasts more than a week! WOOT WOOT! I have so many plans for this summer it's a tad bit ridiculous. I highly doubt I'm going to even touch on half of it but that doesn't mean I'm not going to try! 

Heather's List of Summer Accomplishments (hopefully):
1. Quilt! Quilt! Quilt!
2. Play lots of games
3. Start applying for PhD programs
        (i) Study for Subject GRE
        (ii) Write statements of purpose
4. Knock out a good bit of my thesis

I order an insane amount of fabric last week. I think I've turned into what my aunt calls a "fabric addict." Some of it I just ordered because it looked pretty... I need to be more careful in the future I think but it should help towards my first goal. Hoping it'll be here soon because I'm itching to get started!!! 

Currently, working on (2). Getting my butt handed to me by some computers in Battle for Wesnoth. That's what you get when you team up with a guy. He thinks you can take on 2 computers at once when you've both already admitted to not being great at the game. Apparently, he doesn't comprehend the concept of "baby steps." Tsk tsk. Oh well, we're definitely going to learn from this experience though. Or at least I hope so. 

Well, that's what's new for me this year. I better go focus on my game. I think we might be making a comeback! Hope y'all have a great summer planned and come back soon. Hoping to update regularly over the summer. Might have something about Star Trek Into Darkness because you know this girl is going to go see it! 

Happy Readings!
Heather