Last Minute Quilter's Gift, Plus Star Wars Review

There are four days left in 2015! Is that enough time to make emergency last-second quilted gifts? Why yes, it is! You can even make a Star Wars-inspired quilted gift! But you must spring into action soon - no later than 10 pm on Thursday, December 31 - and set your standards low, like mine.

INTERMISSION: But wait! Before you spring, speaking of emergencies, let me say that the new Star Wars movie was like watching sugar-amped kindergarteners in a ballpit with low-flying missiles!

(Spoiler alert: Skip the next photo and two paragraphs if you don't want to know anything else about the new SW movie)

All I could think about was the huge cardiovascular benefit to the actors whose main job was to run, Run, RUN: Over the planets, through the woods, into the spaceships, under the spaceships, through tunnels, tents, caves, corridors, past glorious Hogwarts-y and Rivendell-esque scenery, past Targets and ToysRUs selling little jointed plastic replicas of themselves, all the way to a metaphorical grandmother's house, while dodging massive explosions! No wonder those actors are so svelte! Making that movie must have been a totally aerobic experience!

Unlike us, the movie-going audience, who want nothing more than to sit still for 2+ hours, moving only one hand between our box of Jujubees and our mouth, staring at buff people in stylish costumes getting heart-healthy exercise.

So what is the fastest possible gift you can assemble by zipping around your sewing room, and still finish in time for the last of holiday season 2015, hopefully without explosions?

A Star Wars collage hot pad. Assuming you already own some Star Wars fabric, and maybe another bit of fabric with planets or spaceships on it. (if you don't, independent quilt shops and chains are carrying the SW options). I made this a couple of hours before going to the SW movie with friends, to give them as a remembrance of our expedition. It has two layers of cotton batting, and an inside-out pillowcase finish. I topstitched around the edges. The planet is zig-zagged on with invisible monofilament thread. From start to finish it took around 30 minutes. I wrote "2015" on Saturn's rings, just to prove I'd finished it in time to be trendy.

I didn't have any other SW fabrics for the back, so I just used space fabric. 

This is the perfect host/hostess gift for your upcoming New Year's Eve party.  May the force be with you through all your creations! May you endure excellent cardio workouts in the New Year, in stylish clothing, with no explosions! Earlier projects with Star Wars fabric are here.

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!

Awkward Freemotion Quilting, Star Wars & Hair Edition

On my planet, there are two types of freemotion quilting (FMQ).

1. Respectable. (Taught brilliantly by Leah Day, Lori Kennedy, and possibly your local quilt shop teacher), and

2. Awkward. (A form of self-entertainment). 

The trick with both is to "draw" (stitch) a continuous line with the sewing machine, avoiding thread-cutting and ends-hiding. It often involves stitching accurately and repeatedly over the same lines. All this strengthens the quilt, and lets you finish faster, 

Respectable FMQ takes a great deal of practice. Drawing ability helps. It's tasteful, often stupendous, and might win a ribbon at the quilt show.

Awkward freemotion quilting requires no knack for drawing and no practice. A sewing machine is optional. It's a fun way to doodle with a pencil on paper, improves hand-eye coordination and deepens understanding of how to connect FMQ motifs. Done well, you should make yourself laugh.

My latest awkward episode was inspired by the prospect of a new Star Wars movie, coming out in December.  I discovered by accident that if you make 8 loops, you've got Princess Leia's head: 

Jagged lines make a Wookie: 

R2D2 isn't hard to draw continuously...

...but it's even easier to just spell him out in cursive.

Darth Vader is waaayyy  more challenging. As you can see, his helmet was dehydrating and shrinking by the end. 

Talk about helmet hair!

Here's a light saber design:

And speaking of hair, I happened to go to the hairdresser last weekend, and made the mistake of asking for curls with my longish trim. For the rest of the day, I looked like a mature person with a 5-year-old Shirley Temple coif. 

Or maybe like George Washington:

(Drawing George is like drawing Leia, but the loops pile up vertically.)

And speaking of Presidential hair, on the Democratic side, candidate Bernie' Sanders' hair is a Thing. ("Bernie Hair! Don't Care!" tee shirts here. No financial affiliation) My interpretation: 

Glasses are an important vehicle for travelling from one side of a design to the other. 

Hillary's hair changes too much to draw. (Here are 10 different 'dos just from 1993-1994!)

 Joe Biden, and most of the Republican candidates, mostly have unobtrusive hair. I was left with Rand Paul...

(His curls remind me of my son as a toddler. Awww!)

...And You-Know-Who. I drew this page while gazing at his hair in a variety of Google images.

Call this design (a) Donald Trump, (b) Softserve Ice Cream Training Session 1, or (c) Santa Claus, elves, and Bart Simpson flying in the sky. UPDATE: A reader saw Elvis in these figures. That's cool with me. 

And speaking of male do's, have you noticed lately the plethora of young men with man-buns and beards? 

I've barely scratched the surface of  coiffure-related freemotion quilting possibilities!  Run with it! Send pictures! (But no head lice designs - I must draw the line somewhere.) 

Earlier adventures in awkward freemotion quilting: 

Post Spock

Hyperspace

Sound of Music

Sky Things

Gefilte Fish (Now a hot presidential campaign issue!)

PS Speaking of Star Wars, who says Darth Vader can't dance? Your 7-to-77 year old Star Wars fan will love this. 

PPS Speaking of trivial Presidential issues, my friends just told me that you can #Trumpyourcat! No animals were harmed in the making of this strange new hobby.  

PPSS: This just in: President Coolidge was a quilter!