Repurpose for a Reason 2.0

I had a really great time making the Hipster Hound's Travel Kit last year for Habitat for Humanity's Repurpose for a Reason auction, so when the opportunity came up to shop the ReStore for a flipping project again in August, I jumped right on it.

I'm thinking that a lot of people had the same idea... the store was pretty picked over of anything really exciting or unusual. I was hoping to create something useful and beautiful, and everything I was finding spoke more decoratively to my creative brain. I ended up grabbing three bundled up billboard canvases; flat-woven plastic tarp thingies that are digitally printed in huge scale for outdoor advertisements. I figured I could make a quilted art piece out of them.

I had no clue what I was grabbing because they were wrapped up inside out, but I saw some peeks of teal, purple and lime green (my favorites!), so I took those two plus one that seemed to be mostly white. These "tarps" are valued at $2 in the store, so my items were worth a total of $6. I had asked at the checkout if I could come back and get something else if the idea I had didn't work out- of course, offering to pay back the $6- and the lady was unfortunately kind of rude to me... and I was basically told I had to make this work or nothing. Kind of strange if they're trying to have a fundraiser.

I brought my billboard tarps home and anxiously unrolled them to see what I was working with. This was definitely a gamble, as I had absolutely no idea what the billboards said or looked like. I was hoping for something fun or inspirational to serve as a jumping off point for the design.

It's like a billboard burrito!

They were literally the length of my back yard.

The three billboards I brought home ended up being: 1) a SunSeekers by Rosie ad, 2) a Prevea Health ad, and 3) a Rasmussen College ad. Oddly enough, all three had ladies' faces on them, which I intentionally avoided using. Ha ha. Now that I think of it... a bunch of eyeballs all stitched together would be an interesting and slightly macabre piece. Hmmm... 

The piece that spoke to me most was the square on the SunSeekers ad that contained the phrase "GET YOUR SUNSHINE". I thought it could be interpreted in many ways, and could be a positive message for an art piece. I decided to use that as my main focal piece and build from there. I also set aside a little sun shaped icon, the words "free weekend" and the word "moments" from the Prevea ad.

I then set to work chopping up the colorful backgrounds into usable pieces. I loved how the gradients on the large scale prints gave different shades of solid color, depending where the pieces were cut from. 

Radiating sunshine became my theme. I had the dimensions of my great big main block, based on the piece I cut from the SunSeekers ad, so I began sketching out a design. 

The sun is our galaxy's nearest star, so naturally I thought of creating big star points to surround the text block. I wanted to make it look as though energy was radiating from the star center towards the outside edge, so I continued the star points for a few more rows. My fondness for asymmetry guided me towards placing the text block in the bottom left corner. I also wanted to incorporate the little sun icon somehow, so I planned to tie it into the upper right corner, following the star points. 

I did all sorts of fun maths to figure out how many pieces I needed to cut at what sizes, considering a half inch seam allowance and three seams per piece and... ugh. Math. 

When I was pretty confident I had it figured out, I began the cutting process. 

Different sizes, different shades.

The white-hot star!

I then began sewing my pieces together. My sewing machine did not enjoy this project (and frankly, I stopped enjoying it after a while too), because this crinkly, weird, plastic material is not fun to work with. It can't be ironed because it will melt, so nothing was really flat. The no ironing aspect also made the cutting process a little difficult, so nothing was quite the right size- fortunately I cut generously so there was a bit of wiggle room. 

The low "thread count" of this "fabric" made it necessary to use a pretty long stitch, and I top-stitched the seam allowances down to one side on every seam to make sure they sat flat. I do think it added a nice touch as well. 

The first row of star points went pretty much as planned. The transition from white to lavender to purple was looking nice... and then I went to sew the second and third row blocks together. Somewhere between hypotenuse and right angle, my math got a bit wonky. There was no way that two 9" blocks sewn together would make a 20" block with half inch seam allowances. Duh. I really think I planned it correctly, but read the wrong lines at the top when cutting.

Duuuuurp. 

But, I'm nothing if not adaptive, so I made a slight modification to the design. I sewed three of the tiny 4" blocks (that were supposed to be 5" blocks) together, trimmed one end, and sandwiched them between two 9" blocks (that were supposed to be closer to 11") to make a good 21" piece. Honestly, I think it looked pretty neat. It almost resembles patchwork denim.

These modified star points were added around the previous row of star points, with the sun icon block in the corner, to create the completed piece. 

Then came the finishing. If I thought sewing the pieces together was frustrating, it was nothing compared to quilting this crazy thing! I chose to back it with a simple piece of purple felt, as it's inexpensive, 72" wide, and relatively cushy. I omitted batting for this project, as I figured it wasn't necessary. I couldn't use pins to baste the two layers together since the plastic shows all the poke holes, so I had to get creative. 

I planned out my quilting lines using blue painter's tape. I know it's kind of wasteful, but it seemed to be the best way to get some good straight guidelines to sew along. I taped all of the lines radiating from the sun icon, and used the ends of the tape to secure the quilt top to the felt backing. This was also really awkward because the darn thing was larger than my dining room table and I didn't want to put it on the floor for fear the felt would be permanently cat haired from the rug (I do vacuum, I swear!!).

I sewed the radiating lines in simple white thread. I wanted the thread to hint at sunshine, but also blend into the big white focal point. 

I even added hanging pockets in the corners

The binding for this project was made out of strips of more of the teal billboard. I wanted to bring some more of that pretty blue-green down to the opposite corner for some balance. 

Who's ready for the big reveal!?!?

Sadly, there isn't one. I didn't get a chance to photograph this project before returning it to the ReStore to get prepped for the auction. I figured I could get a picture at the venue with the shining star in all its glory... 

I stopped in to the event space on Thursday evening, hoping to catch a glimpse of my work on display and take a photo, but when I approached the event director she explained they must have forgotten to put it on the truck, and that she would have someone go back to the store to get it. I waited as long as I could for it to arrive (I had a meeting that night and couldn't stay for the auction), and left feeling sad but hopeful that it would at least show up before the auction started at 6. 

Around 7:15 pm, I got a text from a friend asking why my piece wasn't on display. My heart sank. I knew that meant that the star had been extinguished. 

Somehow this bright, bold and unusual piece got lost. 

................

Here are a few of my favorite items of the ones that made it to the auction (which were all of them except mine).

A Harry Potter themed dresser

A lamp made out of a food mill

A manly red dresser

A Christmas tree from scrap wood