Where the Walls Have Eyes, Part 13

Where the Walls Have Eyes, Part 13

This part took so long to complete! Wahhhh! I took hundreds of photos along the way, and it has taken me a while to narrow it down a bit.  And, it is still too many photos for one post, so I will be making two posts about the building.

It is all hand sewn, like the prototype. Every seam is a different color.  Some of the seams have 2 squares, some have 3, and some have 4.  As expected the ones with 4 pieces being combined in a single seam were the most difficult physically.  I am pushing a needle through 4 quilted pieces while it is threaded with 6 strands of embroidery floss. Chonky! 

And, trying to remember the orientation of the thing while it is rotated many times during stitching. I selected one face (the front), and put a safety pin in it, to ease my confusion. There are also a number of different color patterns INSIDE the cube, that were a bit cumbersome to remember. 

The first row is completed, and now I move on to those even more tricky seams with 4 pieces at a time. After the first one, I wanted to quit! 

I am starting to get the hang of it! More rows on the first layer! I am also learning that the hand sewing is very stressful to my hands. And it tweaks my tendons, so I started doing hand therapy and getting out the forceps to pull the needle most of the time.

But, I did not. Breaks and rest time are a crucial part of this project! Here is the complete first layer. Every little interior cube will have 4 walls, a floor and a ceiling. The little interior cubes will share their walls, and floors and ceilings with adjoining little cubes. The beautiful colors and threads kept me going!

My stash of embroidery floss.  I had no idea when I started how much thread I would need.  I ended up shopping for more thread about 4 times throughout the project. 

I also changed the color scheme before I started. I liked the aqua blue so much better than the navy blues, that I opted to have all the external sides the brighter and lighter blue. I worked out the math because the entire structure was envisioned with a different set of colors, which were made to order. And, with a few modifications, I was able to make the change. I am so glad I did. I absolutely LOVE the aqua color on the outside.  

I also preplanned the layout of the external sides, to make sure that I was able to both have enough pieces, and that I could arrange those pieces in a pleasing layout.

You can see some of the missing pieces above, which shows how far along I was when I took this photo! 

On to the next level!

And flipped over...

And looking through some holes...

These process photos of looking in the holes before the 'ceilings' are sewn on, have an abundance of light, which really shows off the wonderful colors.  Once the ceilings are sewn on, this beautiful view gets lost, or maybe I should say, goes private? 

Stay tuned. I will post the rest of the process photos and the final project next week. Nearly there!