Watch Me Soar

What happens when a coworker is pregnant and you work at a Quilt Museum? 

You have the whole staff help make a baby quilt of course!

This is the third staff member baby quilt we've made over the past 5 years and like the others before it, was a lot of fun to pull together! H&J, the parents, chose a space theme for the nursery (a popular choice) so we went space themed on the quilt. I went into stealth mode & pulled other staff members down the hall so that everyone was involved. Each person chose a fabric for their planet and I showed them how to use the Olfa circle cutter to cut out their planets - what fun!

 Planets were fused onto this starry fabric to create our own little galaxy for baby boy L. It was fun to see the creativity from my coworkers - making rings, moons, comets, & detailed planetary positions. Once all the planets were in place, I pieced together the backing with some scraps leftover of space, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Star Trek fabrics and this colorful space ship fabric. How else does one travel from planet to planet?

I machine stitched around each planet to secure it, add quilting & durability in anticipation of multiple washings to come. Using glow in the dark thread I quilted in some stars, a bumblebee, and a UFO, before using matching black thread to quilt swirls in the background. It's machine bound with a star print and then I got all the staff members to sign the label on the back.

It's named "Watch Me Soar" which is from a quote from the TV show Firefly " I am a leaf on the wind, watch me soar." This was gifted to H a few weeks ago. So love it well baby L & reach for those stars!
Linked up with: My Quilt Infatuation's Needle & Thread Thursday & Confessions of a Fabric Addict's Woop Woop Finished Friday and From Bolt to Beauty Finally A Finish.

Take the Sky

"Take my love, take my land,Take me where I can not stand
I don't care cause i'm still free 
you can't take the sky from me."
- Firefly Theme Song

This quilt was a lot of fun to make! It's a baby quilt for friends of mine, J&R, who went with a space-themed nursery for their baby girl. They're fans of sci-fi shows so I wanted to bring that into the quilt and make it extra special. I've named it Take the Sky, pulling from the theme song to the TV show Firefly, one of J's favorites.

Here's the front & back of the quilt - you can see I dug out all the space-like fabrics I owned (and borrowed from Momm too!) to make this gift. Fabrics feature: Star Wars, Harry Potter, general space & planets, astronauts & space shuttles, and constellations!

I pulled coordinating colors and all the black & star print fabrics I could find in my stash. I made some wonky star blocks to start, along with the crescent moon using a technique I learned from the July NQM Block of the Month Club. 

Then I pieced the Big Dipper constellation, the paper pieced TARDIS (free pattern from FandomInStitches) and drew my own paper pieced pattern for the Star Trek insignia block. 

a glow in the dark bee!

Then it was time to puzzle piece the elements together filling in blank spots with fabric, randomly pieced segments and fussy cut space bits. I love joining these together to make the whole and it turned out pretty cohesive at the end.

Next it was on to quilting, no easy feat with such a mix of blocks and fandoms. I started by stitching in phrases to add some extra nerdiness. Things like: Expecto Patronum, I aim to misbehave, To infinity and beyond, wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey, Beam me up Scotty, Use the Force, a golden snitch & Nova Corps symbol. Then I personalized the center moon block with the baby's name and had fun filling in the rest of the quilt with stars, stippling, and general free-motion fun using several Aurifil threads.

I got to meet baby A and gift this quilt the the other week and am happy to know it will be well loved by the whole family. They'll have fun searching for the special details stitched into the quilt over the coming months & years. Baby quilts are pure joy to make & gift! Love it well A: Live Long & Prosper! 
 Linking up with Needle & Thread Thursday with My Quilt Infatuation & From Bolt to Beauty Finally a Finish.