A Kirby little secret..

It's time that I let you in on a little secret. During the move and my trip to Rhinebeck and all the insanity that came along with that stuff, I was working on a very important quilt commission.

It was for Nintendo of America. I was commissioned to design and create the quilt for Kirby's Epic Yarn game on the Nintendo Wii. Isn't that insane?! I'm still shocked and it's long finished and shipped out. We love Nintendo at our house, so even though the timing of this project was less than ideal, it was too awesome of an opportunity to pass it up. If you remember I made a Nintendo quilt for my husband a few years back. I don't think I ever posted a photo on the blog, so here's a picture of that one.



Now, on to the Kirby Quilt!

Here is a bad photo of Kirby overseeing the whole operation from the top of our fridge.



I made the whole quilt, all 119 inches (almost 10 feet!square), in the Kitchen because my sewing area hadn't been unpacked or set-up yet, in fact it still isn't. Gotta do that soon.

Here is my initial design plan. I created the grid in Excel, and then just coloured with pencil crayons. Once I decided what I wanted to do, I coloured in my Excel sheet on the computer. That's as high tech as my quilt designing goes. I prefer graph paper and pencil crayons.



The quilt consisted of 80 10inch quilt blocks created by Nintendo fans, media and staff. These were created using the White Bella Solid Layer Cakes and fabric markers. All of the fabrics, mostly solids, and a few prints were ordered from Fat Quarter Shop. Love them! Their fabrics on the screen are soo true to real life, which makes ordering from them awesome. The felt, buttons, embroidery floss came from Fabric.com. This was the first time I ordered from them, but I was very pleased and would do it again.



While waiting for the other blocks to arrive, I started creating my 16 10inch blocks out of felt and embroidery floss, and one big centre logo of the game. I was also asked to embellish each of the 80 blocks with a bit of stitching. Big job! Good thing I was between day jobs at the time. (Still looking for a day job btw if anyone has any leads on anything creative in the Toronto Area or work from home, please let me know)

Here are some of the blocks I received. Love the one on the top in the middle! It's amazing!



Here are my blocks



The centre square



Me and the final product! Ready to ship!



Some of the blocks and detail









And here is the finished quilt! Hard to photograph in the apartment so this one was sent to me.



I had no idea where the quilt was going to be displayed. Turns out it was at the Nintendo World store re-opening in NEW YORK CITY!! for Super Mario's 25th Anniversary. How awesome was that!



The above photo was taken by hello sandy at the Nintendo World store!

Here's a photo taken by GamingBits. That big green square in the top left corner is the back of the quilt hanging in the window.



and some more photos of the event are available here.

Yay! Feels good to get that secret out.

Oh and I got to play the game. Super fun!

Happy Quilting!

My recipe: for Spaghetti Sauce

This spaghetti sauce is something I make a few times a year. It makes a big batch and I freeze it in Medium Ziploc bags. This sauce originated with my friend Lisette. She invited me over to make sauce one day, and I wrote it down as I went. She's not a fan of veggies and I am, so I added a zillion veggies which were not in her original recipe.



Here it goes:

Lisette and Sarah Spaghetti Sauce

In large pot:

1 large Onion
2 stalks Celery
1 Bacon (I omit the bacon because I rarely have any)

Cook those and add meat

1 pound of ground beef (or chicken or turkey, I've tried them all) you can also add probably another pound of meat if you are a meatarian (i'm pretty close to vegetarian)

Add veggies:
1 green pepper chopped
1 red pepper chopped
2 medium zucchini chopped
2 cups carrots cut fine (i like those matchstick precut carrots in the produce section)
1 tray of mushrooms
1 can of mushrooms (I like mushrooms)

Spices:
Bit of nutmeg
Bit of sage
Lots of oregano
Lots of basil
Red Pepper flakes (to your spicy level)
3 bay leaves
salt
pepper

Add:
1/2 cup red wine (I rarely have this since I'm not much of a drinker, so I use about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of red wine vinegar)
1 big can of tomato paste (or two small ones)
2 cans of diced tomatoes
2 cans of tomato sauce

Let that cook over medium-low for about 30-50 minutes

Let cool slightly and carefully scoop into Medium Ziploc Freezer bags. Makes about 6 bags. Each bag serves 3. (You can portion to suit your family)

Store in the freezer flat.

Then all you need to do is take it out the of freezer the night before and defrost in the frige.

This is the best sauce I've had and it's sooo much better than jarred sauce. Try it and enjoy the homemade goodness.

Rhinebeck Recap

It feels like ages since we went to Rhinebeck for the Dutchess County Sheep and Wool Festival but really it was only a few weeks ago. October 16-17th to be exact.

We had an amazing time! I only took two pictures. It was such a whirlwind that I wanted to enjoy every second. Plus I knew that there would be tonnes of photos in the blogisphere if I wanted to re-live it again.

The highlight of the trip was meeting THE Ysolda Teague! and Louise and I got our picture taken with her! What would have made it more fabulous was if I had finished my Damson Shawl in time to wear to Rhinebeck, but sadly I only finished it yesterday. Photos to come after blocking.

Here's us with Ysolda!



My other photo was of the famous and incredibly delicious chicken pot pie. Yum, yum, yum!



We also had some of the maple cotton candy, Heaven!

Here's my yarn haul.



Slightly over budget. But I did come home with 25 dollars.

Clockwise from far left.
Mini Mochi, Colour: Babyface 111
The Sanguine Gryphon Litte Traveler, Colour: San Zhi
The Sanguine Gryphon Bugga! , Colour: Half-Banded Topper
Jamie Harmon Merino/Angora 2 ply handspun, Colour: Multi
Jamie Harmon Merino/Angora 2 ply millspun, Colour: pink-red (making that up)
Socks that Rock Lightweight Mill-end, pink
Socks that Rock Lightweight Mill-end, grey green blue
Fibre Optics Roving, 80% Merino & 20% Silk, Colour: Chocolate-loden-teal-dusty blue gradient

And a Ravelry Goodybag from the awesome party! Priceless!

I also got a Jennie The Potter yarn bowl. Which I've already put to good use on my next project. I'm starting the Daybreak Shawl by Stephen West.



If you every have a chance to go to Rhinebeck, do it! You won't be disappointed.