Evening in the Garden Quilts

Adventures in Fabric Art

Tag Archives: Star Wars


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Star Wars Finish

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I found myself working away on this quilt on May the Fourth, so I guess the Force is strong with this one!

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Pro Tip:  Make sure you’re using you 1/4″ foot while you are piecing.  I made all these geese using my open-toe #20 foot, left on from binding the last quilt.  Apparently it sews a 3/8 or 5/16″ seam… Made them too small.  Thank goodness the whole top wasn’t full of piecing!

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I’m much happier with the quilting on this one.  It’s rays extending in different directions, and it seems to be enough.

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You’ll find this quilt in my Etsy Shop.

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Friday Finish: Star Wars

IMG_2825Here’s my latest finish.  It’s a fun size (48″ x 60″), and was quick and easy to make.  It includes two Star Wars fabrics, some batik, some metallic print, another gray print, some blue Grunge, a blue geometric, and some Kona Ash.  I found these scraps while straightening some of my fabric drawers and decided to make them up for donation.

2017-03-17 15.50.04How do you keep your blocks in order for assembly?  Usually I number them using Crayola Washable marker.  This time the blocks were too dark, metallic, etc., for the marker to show up on most of them.  Instead, I used numbered bits of blue painters tape, which was really more work than I wanted to do.  These stuck long enough to get the blocks to my sewing machine, and it went together properly.  However, the tape started to come off as I was sewing and stuck to everything else in sight.  I wore a few numbers to dinner that night, and I am still finding them.  Please tell me a better way!

IMG_2826The quilting was a lot of fun.  The light-colored diagonals are sewn with Superior NiteLite (glow-in-the-dark) thread, and I experimented with some decorative stitches to put a little more thread on there.  I use gray Bottom Line for the swirls and ribbon candy.

IMG_2827I pieced the back with more of the scraps.

IMG_2829I haven’t decided where I’ll be donating it yet, but I have a few ideas.

I’m linking up to Sew Some Love at Kat and Cat Quilts.


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Force Awakens Quilt Finish

IMG_2717Today I finished the little Star Wars quilt I worked on this week.  It evolved a lot since my first concept, but I like the way it turned out.  And I have a lot of left over fabric that I cut along the way, so there will be a sequel.  I wrote a tutorial on inserting the orange strips into existing blocks.

IMG_2719The back is a blue geometric, a band of of orange Fairy Frost, and a section of gray moonscape.

IMG_2716I quilted it in a six” grid with gray Bottom Line.  Then I used NiteLite Extra Glow thread (Superior) to quilt diagonal lines in the direction of the green streaks in the fabric.  I did both a long straight stitch, and #44, a “hand quilting” stitch.  This would take some tweaking to really look like hand quilting, but the forward and back stitching put down lots of thread to enhance the glowing effect.  I used this is a quilt I made my son long ago, so I know it last through years of use and washing.

Batting is Warm and Plush.  35″ x 41″

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Of course, Yuri snuggle tested it, and it passed.

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Coming soon to an Etsy shop near you.

I reworked some of the blocks in the Star Wars baby quilt, and here is the finished top.  I inserted strips of orange Fairy Frost into some of the silver blocks, and I think it gives it some pop.

Let me begin by telling you not to make your blocks this way.  The best way to do it is to plan ahead and cut your blocks over-sized, then trim them after you’re finished.  I didn’t do that.  My blocks were already cut 6 1/2″ square, and I had limited fabric to remake them.  So I used the ones it had, sewed them carefully, and they worked.

After slashing your block on the diagonal, sew your insert strip to the largest piece of your block, right sides together.  My strip is 1″ wide, so that it finishes at 1/2″.

Press the seam toward the insert.  

Place the remaining piece on top of the block, right sides together, matching the corners.

Place a ruler across the pieces at a 45° angle (it might help to use a ruler with the angle marked).  Use some type of marker to make a tick mark at the top of each piece.

Reposition the smaller block piece along the insert strip, matching the marks.  Pin, then sew. 

Also press this seam toward the insert.  The result should be close enough to your original block size.  Or right on, like this one!  Just trim the ends of the insert.
I’m going to finish this with some diagonal quilting, then bind it with the orange.  The Force Awakens!


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Star Wars Scrap Quilt

IMG_2485I haven’t yet made any blocks for the Droid Quilt Along at The Stitch TV Show, but I got all excited before the directions came out and made the back for it.  That left me with just a few scraps that I had to make into another baby quilt, just because.

IMG_2489This was my first time making the wonky stars.  They are easy enough, but not as quick as I thought.  I like them, though.  They are made entirely from pieces from my 2 1/2″ and 3 1/2″ bins.  The different grays give some dimension.

IMG_2486I quilted all the plain blocks with wonky stars.  I was set to use decorative thread, but then decided that I wanted the shadows to do all the work, so the whole thing is quilted, top and bottom, with Superior’s Bottom Line in white.

IMG_2488The back is made from some multi-tone chevron fabric that wasn’t wide enough.  I made the zig zag insert using blocks I had miss-cut on those other elephant/SW quilts.

IMG_2496This is headed to my Etsy shop.  If you haven’t seen all the Star Wars baby stuff on Etsy, go look.

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That’s No Moon!

2015-08-26 11.22.23 pmA long time ago… no, I won’t go there.  But this is the saga of the baby quilt commission that occupied a lot of August for me.

2015-08-26 11.19.20The order was fine.  It took a number of emails back and forth to work out the design and fabrics, but that was no problem.  Neither was the construction.  I had made the basic design three times before, so all went well.  Then I washed it.

wpid-2015-08-19-11.14.20.jpg.jpegI always prewash my fabrics, with Color Catchers.  I always wash the finished quilts with Color Catchers.  I so seldom have a bleed…  I checked the front to be sure that all my Crayola Washable markings had come out.  I forgot to check the back, and I dried it.  Big mistake.

I tried Shout and two different approaches with Oxi Clean.  I never made it to the blue Dawn, because the Oxi took all the color out of my silver light saber.  Sigh.  I’m ready to do the bleach-on-a-Qtip thing before donating it, but I’m just leaving it sit for a while.  Sigh.

2015-08-26 11.21.05So, I remade it with different blue fabric, different silvery fabric, and no blue ink jet ink on the applique sheet.  Whatever it was, it didn’t happen this time.  And the finished quilt has reached it’s destination.  Whew.

2015-08-26 11.19.54I will say that my quilting improved on this last one (#5 of this design!).  And I like how the trimmings of the chevron backing fabric made a striped binding.

2015-08-26 11.21.59Anyway, stay safe out there, and watch your backs.