Star Wars Baby Quilt

Posted on January 31, 2021 by spunstraw

I had so much fun designing and making this quilt for one of my best friend’s friends! After watching season 2 of The Mandalorian and starting The Clone Wars I was all up for making a Star Wars quilt!!

My best friend purchased one of my other quilts (the Sonic Bloom quilt I talked about here) for a friend of hers that had a baby and realised she needed a Star Wars themed one for another friend! She liked a foundation paper pieced (FPP) block I’d made before so we started with that for design and went from there.

I chose the 4 feature blocks from Quiet Play Patterns that she has free in her shop here. And then decided I was crazy and wanted to do lightsabers as the border. Fandom in Stitches is an excellent resource if you’re looking for FPP patterns for popular topics like Star Wars or Harry Potter, but they even have sections for Labyrinth and The Princess Bride!! It’s a library of patterns made by different people that have been collected in the same place. (Due to licensing laws you’re not allowed to sell things made from these patterns and they’re intended for personal use.) And it’s where I got the pattern for the lightsabers by Gretchen Kohlhaas. I used 4 out of the 5 she had in the pattern and ditched Qui-Gon Jinn’s saber as felt the other 4 were more “important.”

I talked a little about paint.net in my last post, and I also used that to mock up a design for my friend so she could see my vision! It started out with a y-seamed border and a border around the feature blocks, and then was updated to what I ended up making with no borders and elongating the top and bottom lightsabers to save myself a headache in working out the length of them!

I also changed the order of the blocks after laying them out! (the AT-AT had to stay on the “ground” but the Death Star felt more balanced on the bottom right)

I decided to make the geometric feature blocks out of four greys – two prints and two solids. Got the four lightsaber colours, and got a couple more greys to help with the lightsaber handles.

The fabrics are (in order of the first pull photo on my hand!):

Kona Quicksilver
Kona Gotham Grey
Dashwood Pop in Watermelon
Kona Chartreuse
Kona Heliotrope
Kona Alegria
Kona Steel
Kona Iron
Cotton and Steel Moonrise Patch Cloud
Cotton and Steel Panorama Dandy Bars Cloud
Background – Ruby Star Society Brushed in Soft Blue
Backing – Art Gallery Fabrics Stargazer Happy Moons

I simplified the lightsabers from the pattern versions a little by taking out some of the grip texture. Since it’s a baby quilt I felt it didn’t need to be so detailed and would save me some time too. I used my add an eighth ruler for a lot of it so ended up putting a very lightweight interfacing behind the piecing to help hold the seams together. Blue – Obi Wan Kenobi, Green – Luke Skywalker, Purple – Mace Windu, Red – Darth Vader

I’ve been watching The Clone Wars and happened to reach an episode of padawans building their lightsabers for the first time while I was working on these. The force was with me, though I couldn’t build these with the force, I had to use my sewing machine!

To quilt it I kinda winged it, usually have a good idea before I start, but wasn’t quite sure with this one. Had wanted to do a grid, but it felt wrong to sew across a lightsaber (plus the plasma would melt the thread right??) so did a grid across each block, quilted a line down each of the sashing pieces and then echoed the lightsabers so that their outline would show on the back of the quilt, and they’d sort of stand out on the front. I’m pretty happy with how the quilting turned out, but it was a lot of ends to sew in!

I designed a label in Canva, traced it onto some fabric and embroidered it. I’ll do a tutorial/blog post in the near future to go into more detail!

In photos the feature blocks sort of blend into the brushed background, but in person they stand out more. My blue shed came in handy once again for a finished quilt photo! Though I was hoping we’d have enough snow to pretend we were on Hoth.. Alas it always melts by the afternoon!

This quilt is hopefully getting to baby Miles very soon and he’ll get to snuggle with the happiest moons I’ve ever seen! (And something pretending to be a moon…)

I’ve got another Star Wars backed quilt coming soon, keep an eye out mid Feb to see the reveal of my first pattern and another baby quilt!

If you’ve made it this far thanks for reading! Hope you’ve found my ramblings interesting! I finished The Clone Wars the other day and found the last episode one of the most beautiful cinematic moments of the Star Wars franchise so I have plans to make a couple wall hangings when I get time. I won’t be able to sell the patterns due to licensing, but if they work out I may be able to give them out free for personal use.