The Little Lightsaber Baby Room: Star Wars Quilt

Right after I finished up the fitted crib sheet, the Star Wars fabric arrived! YAY! We decided to get the fat quarter bundle that included a panel.

Once I unpacked the fabric, I decided to scrap my original pattern idea and design my own. The print on some of the fabric was fairly large and wouldn't work well cut up into 5" squares. Plus the characters on the panel were an odd size that just didn't work no matter what I did.

I find that I sometimes I need to let the fabric determine the design...plus I LOVE to create my own patterns, quilts included. My main inspiration was the panel - so I started there. I didn't really have a plan - which is often how I work. But here's the process I went through:

1.  I cut each character into rectangles that were 6 1/4" tall and 5 3/4" wide. I had to cut the names off, but it allowed me to focus on the faces. I ended up with 18 total characters.

2. I cut the plain green, blue, and black fabric into 6 1/4'" x 5 3/4" pieces. I did this randomly (and have some left over). I ended up with a mix, but used 12 total.

3. I cut the "Star Wars" word fabric into 6 1/4" x 5 3/4" pieces, paying particular attention to the direction. These need to be 6 1/4" TALL! I ended up using 11 - I had a few left over.

4. There were four fat quarters that had large designs. I fussy-cut those into four blocks that were 12" (tall) and 11" (wide) pieces. Those are circled in red (to the left).

5. I started randomly placing these on my quilt design wall. When something didn't look right, I went back to the leftover fabric (the large design) and cut some 6 1/4" x 5 3/4" pieces. I used those to fill in and balance the design. Again, this is random! 

Here you can see the one big block and the smaller blocks, all cut from the same fabric.

6. Once I was happy with the placement, I started sewing these together.

And here is the final quilt top. It's 43 1/4" wide by 46 1/2" tall. Now I just have to wait for the backing fabric to arrive!



One quick note - as I started cutting, I realized that some of the fabric was printed a bit crooked. I checked and rechecked the grain and did what I could to make it work. Luckily, it's not too noticeable.



UPDATE! Quilt is done!!