Star Wars Characters Go Home for the Holidays to a Log Cabin Quilt

Star Wars, it's everywhere! Even quilt shops aren't safe! But before you spend $102.48 for a half-yard bundle of SW fabric - consider what you might make.  Last year, I made a pillowcase for a young fan. (I'm abbreviated to SW so you don't get sick of seeing the words.)

It only took about a yard of fabric. I used up all the colorful guess-what-themed fabric. The piece I had leftover was a quarter-yard of this somber print...

So last week, I thought it might be fun to put these gray guys into colorful little houses. Specifically, improvisational faux-wood log cabin houses (thank you, Karen, for the scraps!)

In the quilt world, squares built out from the center by adding strips to the sides are called log cabins. First, I thought I might make each unit into a seperate coaster. Then, I plopped all four of them into the same indigo batik snowflake neighborhood:

Liked it! I also built a ground-floor addition to Darth Vadar's house, to accomodate his scary boss/roomate, the furious-nosed Darth Sidious.*

(Is that Darth Sidious? Corrections welcomed.) Whoever. Here's how the piece looked after quilting with a blue metallic thread (which can't be seen at all without a magnifying glass):

I also added a chimney, and cut a piece from a produce bag as smoke.

(My house-depiction skills have not advanced since 2nd grade. I am sacrificing my self-respect here in order to prove that anyone can do this.)

Because it was so improvisational, there was an unanticipated space (Space!), immediately to the east of C3PO R2D2's house [whoever]. So I imagined an invisible driveway with a vintagey spaceship parked in it, cut from a non-SW fabric. That's a dog in the rocketship window, symbolizing a wookie.

I didn't intend for the piece to look like Christmas/Chanukah, but that's what the snowflake batik accomplished. By now, the whole thing was screaming "winter holidays." A visiting friend took one look and asked me if I was making an Advent Calendar?!

Clearly, the Galactic Rulers wanted this to be a holiday quilt. Imagine, I told myself, that SW characters are going home for the winter holidays to their wooden log cabins, where they live next to each other in the same exclusive gated community. On their planet, by sheer coincidence, seasonal festivities involve trees and multi-armed candelabras.

With an undecorated tree:

With a lit menorah: 

How about a tree, a menorah AND a spaceship?

How about losing the ship, decorating the tree, and using a smaller menorah one the lower left?

After some agonizing, I wound up with a decorated tree and a small menorah. 

It became the perfect present for good friends of mine who love both Christmas and SW, and have friends of many faiths.

Meanwhile, if you are a beginning quilter, you may be wondering how to sew freeform log cabins. Start with your character. Cut him (with SW, it's usually a him) out in a rectangle or square. Surround with housing material - I used 1"- 2"strips from woodgrain scraps. Stitch the logs to all four sides (or just the two verticles, and one horizontal on top, to evoke a doorway). That's Unit I. 

There are a million ways to vary the above directions, altering configurations of the house and the roofs. However you do it, the final step is to stitch the bottom edge of Unit II to the top edge of Unit I. 

If you don't feel like making a SW quilt, support an independent quilter by shopping for reasonably-priced handmade SW quilts on Etsy.com. Also spotted on Etsy: dog collars; women's shoes; bowties; lampshades, and much more, all made from SW fabric.  Plus lots and lots of yardage.

Another place to find ideas is at Camelot Fabrics, the manufacturer - a couple of free projects start on this page.

Hancock Fabrics is having a SW sale! (no financial affiliation with any of these places).

What's next? I predict: Star Wars-themed sewing machines, with special effects and climactic music, rising to a crescendo when you press harder on the pedal and/or use your fanciest attachments.

*As opposed to the even more furious, nasally deficient, Voldemort.

P.S. Then there's this. It's literally true:

This is literally true. Sold here. No financial affiliation!

Improvising a Star Trek Villain Quilt & Tutorial

Sometimes a quilt name just jumps into your head, and won't leave. When this quilt was almost finished, it came to me: "Crystalline Entity".

For you non-Trekkers, the CE was a fast-moving giant snowflake which ate everyone and everything. (Details here). Not only that, but the 'Next Generation' episode it appeared in was even more morose and melodramatic than usual.

I didn't set out to make a giant killer snowflake. I had no idea what it was going to look like when I started sewing scraps together.

To me, improvisational quilting  means you set out on a journey - just like the Starship Enterprise - without the slightest clue where you're going. You might  bump into something meaningful, beautiful, campy, and/or murderous, but mostly, it's about the voyage.

I began by cutting a bunch of 1.5" white strips, and going through my scrap pile for smallish blue pieces. Place them on the strip and stitch.

Leave more space than I did between pieces. Press open, then trim the pieces straight, if possible.

 Next side:

 Press open. Repeat until all sides are surrounded:

If you find you have a piece missing (ha!)....

....just add it at an angle. 

Join units together. Start at the center, and build your way out. This is easy when the entity is small, but as it grows, it gets more challenging. (Just like CE!)

When adding an outer piece, I pressed one seam upward (the seam allowance below the dark triangle), then stitched the adjoining seam on my machine (the grey stitching to the right of the dark triangle)... 

 Press open, and hand stitch that lower folded-in edge in place.

When all the pieces were in position,  I tested the entity on various background fabrics. But then I decided I liked it just the way it was, with jagged edges. I pressed it to fusible batting and a white backing....

Cut away the extra....

Finished the edges with a corded edging. Here it is pre-embellishment: 

Without embellishment, it would work as a table runner as well as a wall hanging. But I threw some buttons on it, and one thing led to another...

The finished image is at the top of this post. It's about 23" across, so it probably won't consume a planet any time soon. Along with the vague resemblance to the CE, it also looks to me like someone punched a hole through a wall or a window. Here's a closeup 

In hindsight, I would say that this project went quickly from ridiculously easy to very tricky, especially around the exterior. I could have achieved virtually the same final effect by simply zig-zagging small blue scraps onto one large background piece of white. But hey, as we know from Star Trek, it's not about the ending, right? It's all about the voyage.

By the way, do you think it needs more buttons?

How Your Fabric Stash Can Improve Your Techno-Savvy, Increase Income, and Strengthen Marriage

It's not easy being a woman, and as if pantyhose, salpingo-oopherectomy, and unequal pay aren't bad enough, our better clothing lacks pockets.

Women have long complained about pocket deprivation, but today the stakes are vastly higher - pockets, it turns out, are essential to keeping up with the boys in technology (and therefore, pay), because that's where they keep their e-gadgets. My friend Teresa sent me this fascinating article called 'The Gender Politics of Pocket' in The Atlantic.

Solution: Use your quilting fabric stash to create and lengthen existing pockets! Or, Teresa found this site where you can buy premade pocket extenders: http://www.pocketforsmartphones.com/ - they're a cheap investment in your future, and the page has easy installation directions. Since I love polka dots, here's the one I'd buy:

) . 

And speaking of delightful fabric, your techno-savvy won't improve, but you will attract more brick-and-mortar friends if you wear disembodied celebrity heads. The maker, a creative young fiber artist named Erin Pearce, accepts commissions, and along with dresses,

...she also makes shirts and shorts from her custom fabric, and they're not too pricey. (Yes, that's Captain Picard of Star Trek.) I'd befriend anyone on the street dressed in early Picard (or Worf, or Cumberbatch).

What if your favorite celebrity is imaginary, and he's Superman? Make this.

Cindy, of Cation Designs, tells me she found the fabric from a thrift shop, and it was a....wait for it....bed sheet! (Obviously minimally slept on or laundered).  And - oh yes - it has pockets! (I asked!)

He wasn't exactly Superman, but I do have a lot of Elvis fabric, and I love making little scenes from it, like this one, blogged here:

But here's what I usually do with novelty fabrics: Make "Everything in the World" baby quilts. The top panel, among the clouds, has squares of sky stuff (planets, birds, cow jumping over the moon). There's all kinds of random things in the novelty fabric 9-patches below the sky - dogs, cats, elephants, berries, Mighty Mouse, Elvis, you name it.... 

And the bottom has sea-dwelling entities like ships and fish. 

Next, the story of an adorable husband and wife who dress in matching novelty fabric outfits: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/may/25/husband-and-wife-dressed-same-35-years.

This quirky habit adds depth to their marriage. Now if only I could persuade DH to wear one of these whenever I wear the other:

Left Worf and right Worf. With pockets, of course. Here's the matching quilt:

(Just kidding, I haven't made any of these things....yet....)

14 More Awkward Reality-Based Freemotion Quilting Designs

Inspired by the awesome Leah Day, I started practicing freemotion designs. Before long, I found myself making up my own. Two weeks ago, I produced 29 plus, each more awkward than the one before! It's hard to stop! The worse you draw, the more you laugh!

Plus, connecting motifs is excellent brain training if you ever get serious. Here's something I couldn't do before studying Leah's technique - the background quilting on this little scrap quilt (which I showed a few weeks ago. Since then, I added a moon and a lot of McTavishing).

McTavishing is the multidirectional quilting on the blue area. This may look messy, but it is pretty impressive, for me. Here are Leah's McTavishing instructions - thanks to Karen McTavish, too.

This week, over a dozen new freemotion designs emerged.It's no longer safe for me to drive with a pad of paper in my purse.  I am hooked, like a texting teen. Without further ado: 

My Son is in New England:

Llamas are on the Lam: 

Pi Day is Imminent (March 14), and It's a Really Big Deal This Year 

Read the third paragraph here to learn why.)

If You Touch My Fabric Scissors, You Will Be Struck Down By Lightning:


And Don't Use My Quilt for a Picnic:

I Signed Up for a Ballroom Dancing Class...

...But After One Lesson, I Never Went Back.

I Can't Believe I Ate Three Hamantaschen: 

Could Have Had a Banana:

I Say Sweet Potatoes, You Say....

 Friends Don't let Friends Use KCups:

 (Kcups also work nicely in quilt borders, and they double as vertebrae):

(Even the guy who invented Kcups regrets it.)

Continuing to honor the world of Leonard Nimoy, we have here Late-Era Klingon Foreheads:

Hyperspace: 

The Starship Enterprise in an Alternate Universe Populated by Infinite Numbers of Them?...

...Sure, and it's also Time for Your Mammogram. 

Cmon, you can play along! Send me your designs as low-res jpgs, and I'll post the ones that are not in insanely poor taste! Last week's designs are here.