Friday, August 19, 2011

May the Force be with Baby: A Star Wars Quilt

We've had a good first week of school! This is Dorothy getting ready to blow out our circle time candle on the first day. I've learned that a) homeschooling takes a lot more of my day than I had been able to comprehend (although I'd been warned about that) and b) I need to make some curriculum adjustments or we'll both get bored in a hurry. I've purchased a ready-made kindergarten curriculum and I love many things about it but it's a little soft on some skills we're ready to march on into. That's a great thing about homeschool, I have to say, because I can easily make these adjustments to suit my specific child.
And late last night after my wee padawans were snug in their beds I snuck back down to the sewing machine and made a baby quilt to gift to a friend. This is for the first baby of an old college pal. This friend is the only person with whom I've attended a midnight movie showing (he was in costume) and the only person I know who owns (or owned? It's been a while...) red contact lenses. When he told me he and his wife were expecting a boy I knew I had to make him something cool and nothing light blue or fluffy.
I bought one fat quarter of Star Wars fabric on Etsy, then found coordinating prints on Fabric.com. I used the licensed fabric to make homemade patches and then made strips of the rest. I'm not much of a quilter but I like the cutely haphazard look of strip blankets. I machine stitched it all and didn't use batting because I wanted it to be thin and flexible enough to actually wrap the baby in. The finished size is 34 by 38 inches and the back is a soft black flannel. It felt funny to have the sewing machine threaded in black to make a baby gift, but I think this one will be appreciated by the baby's father, at least.

6 comments:

  1. Um...you just "snuck down to the sewing machine" and made a quilt??? A stinkin' QUILT?!?!?! Sheesh! Please tell me you at least had the pieces cut out or something and you didn't do it from start to finish in one setting. Right??? ;)

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  2. Ha ha, go easy on me now! Strip quilts don't really take very long to cut out, and I was up until 2:00. I'm a procrastinator, actually--I had to gift it this weekend!

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  3. Riiiiiiiight. I officially hate you again. :)

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  4. That's not very nice Autumn; I like you. :)

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  5. OK, well. I guess I can still like you. I just want to be as super-awesome as you are (one of these days)!!! :)

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