Darth Vader Quilt - Handmade Christmas Gift

Each year, it gets harder and harder to surprise Drew with an amazing Christmas gift. I love handmade gifts because they are typically kind to the wallet but still have a huge impact. Back in October when I was searching ideas for our anniversary, I thought about making Drew a quilt. Since I only had a week for that occasion, I decided to make the quilt for Christmas, leaving me plenty of time to research and make.

Since I have so many fabric swatch books for bag making, I thought it would be fun to make a scrappy fabric quilt, with all darker colors, in a geometric design. I started looking up a lot of quilt patterns, but nothing jumped out at me. Thankfully, when you start researching a topic on Pinterest, other pins magically appear and that's where I found the Darth Vader quilt pattern.

Drew loves Star Wars (personally, I never got into the movies) and I sent him a secretive text message asking if Darth Vader was cooler than R2D2 or a storm trooper (because there are quilt designs with them as well). Obviously he chose Darth Vader, and I started combing through my stash to use up any fabric I had.

I am not a quilter. I've made one quilt, and swore them off. But this quilt seemed like a good second quilt since it was just a bunch of squares. I had almost all the fabric in my stash, and only had to buy a little extra silver and the actual Star Wars print for the backing. I even had leftover batting from another project.

This quilt came together very easily. The cutting was pretty time consuming, but it was a calming process. The original pattern is for a lap quilt, and since Drew is 6' tall, I added a few extra lines on the top and bottom for a little added length. I also decided to only actually quilt the grey area, making Darth Vader "pop" a little more.

My local Joann's only had 1.5 yards of the Star Wars fabric in stock, so I had to add extra material on the sides to fit the entire backing.

Darth Vader's details were made with bias tape, and was the most nerve wrecking part. Thankfully the diagram for the pattern was great, and it all worked out. To make it easier to sew (and instead of wasting time pinning) I marked the outline with a water soluble pencil and lined the tape up as I sewed. This technique worked really well.

I finished the quilt on Christmas Eve at 10 pm. Drew fell asleep watching tv and I ran downstairs to wake him up asking if he wanted to open presents that night. I couldn't wait to give him the quilt! He said yes and I gave him the quilt unwrapped!

He loves it! He couldn't believe that's what I was working on and how much time went into it. He has yet to decide if he's going to hang it or use it!

Quilt Pattern from Shwin & Shwin

Star Wars Fabric from Joann Fabrics

Drew can also be really great with gift giving and I received a Kitchen Aid Mixer! After squealing with excitement, I asked him if he got it on sale. Since it was half off, I had no problem keeping it (those things are expensive!).

A few other items I made for the holidays:

Christmas Stocking! I asked Drew to come shopping with me and let him pick out his own fabric. Can you guess who's is who's haha! I found a free pattern online, and used the tutorial by Meredith from Olivia Jane Handcrafted.

And a Tree Skirt! This was the first year we had a full size tree and I made a simple tree skirt for the bottom. We borrowed Drew's parent's fake tree and half of the bottom lights are broken, so the whole thing doesn't light up. We said we would fix it before putting the ornaments on, but didn't get around to it before Christmas Eve. So our decorations weren't perfect, but the tree skirt looked great! (I since added ties)

Whew! Only took a week after Christmas to post about my holiday makes! Not too shabby!