Thursday, March 5, 2020

may the quilt force be with you - a gradu-mas gift

so far, in the spirit of trying new patterns, i've made quilts for my aunt, my mom and my cousin the last few christmases.
it was only a matter of time before i made one of the brothers something, and it just so happened to be that my sister's husband ben was also graduating with his bachelor's degree and teaching credential at christmas time as well.  i had this pattern i wanted to try out before using it as a music quilt (so yes, you'll see version 2 real soon!) and had the idea to do it in a variety of fandoms that ben likes, thinking i could use fabric from my stash.  well, it turned out that ben only likes star wars these days...
on a whim, i wandered joanns and was instantly inspired by the various blue, black and gray star wars prints i found that also appeared to be relatively new.  i snagged a piece of each of them, as well as some coordinating quilting cottons to offset all of the novelty licenced prints.
one section of the quilt requires 4 1/2" squares, which i managed to get 60 out of... which i thought was just enough.  nope... i needed 90.  so since ben was graduating to be a math teacher, i ran out to a local quilt shop to get a chunk of blue math themed fabric to mix in to the front as well as add a piece to the backing to tie it all together.
when i start to layout these overly scrappy quilts, i have to remind myself that no matter how hard i try, one print on two different blocks is bound to touch.  i managed to do rather well with balancing out the star wars prints, which was the main goal of having them look more scattered away from their similar prints and everything.  usually i do everything one piece at a time for each block, but with this one i had to do each block one at a time to make sure i didn't mix anything up and accidentally have some sideways droids or something.
i almost went for a solid/tonal print for the borders, but these droids were too cute to pass up.  yeah, i just called the droids cute, ben.  sorry not sorry.  i pulled this black from my stash to use as the binding, which really helped tie it all together.  the quilting is a pantograph called "malachite" which i used on my garden snails 2.0, and it really helped bring that all over texture to the quilt without being too boxy or loopy.
pew pew
they struggled a bit with folding up the quilt, but to be fair... it said it was a lap quilt, but it definitely fit on both of our queen sized beds.
so now that ben has gotten his own "lap quilt," who will be next?  will markham get something sandwich shop ninja themed?  or will joshua get something... black?  gray?  i don't know about him yet... ha!  brothers can be so difficult.
pattern:  quick as a wink - scottie dog quilts
quilt count: 128

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