Astronaut Quilt

The way my guild runs its sales is that desirable and less desirable fabrics are stacked and bundled together so a purchase of one fabric forces a purchase of all in the entire bundle – at a great bargain price of course. The  buyer essentially gets that "extra" fabric for free. This is a common practice often used at estate sales as well. I had a perfect fabric I'd bought at one such auction (5/14/2018), a novelty print of astronauts that I thought would be cool for a child. Tucked in with it were two less-exciting but usable fabrics that I dutifully took off the guild's hands. But that astronaut fabric was so cute, it was worth it. I outbid several other quilters to get it! I tucked it away in my stash four years ago, awaiting the perfect candidate for it.

Then I learned my daughter-in law's sister in Colorado just had her second child, a boy. Bingo! That fabric was a perfect fit for a quilt for a baby boy. It was by Camelot fabrics and called Outer Space.

FABRIC AND PATTERN CHOICES
For scale, each earth is 1½" diameter. I cut out 25 squares of astronauts exploring outer space.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I recalled the following image of a pattern that I had downloaded from the AllPeopleQuilt.com website. The quilt was titled Pinwheel Pals and the designer was Julie Herman of Jaybird Quilts. Where its novelty squares were light I planned to substitute the dark space fabric but to keep the alternating pinwheel block idea.

In my stash I had the perfect green and turquoise like the earths' colors to pair with the astronaut fabric. I made 96 half-square triangles in thin green stripes and large turquoise dots.

PIECING THE FRONT
I made 24 pinwheels taking care that the stripe rotated consistently with each pinwheel. On the left pinwheel the black squiggle had a dark stripe above and the light one below. On the right  pinwheel the dark squiggle has the opposite, a light stripe above and a dark one below. Can't see a difference? It is more obvious if they are inconsistent within the pinwheel. Then I stacked the 25 blocks and 24 pinwheels into seven lettered columns A-G for assembly.

BACKING SELECTION AND PREPARATION
I also had in my stash some fabric with just the right turquoise color and a pale green blend that I could use as a backing. It was a kind of floral/paisley crossover, typically feminine in feel. I loved the swirly print and was saving the 3+ yard clearance remnant for something ideal. I reasoned it could be used as a backing. The scale of the print was too large and too lovely to chop up into little pieces. Did the theme go with outer space?  Not really. Was it too feminine looking? Perhaps. But I could still visualize a set of tiny baby fingers poking and exploring around all those curves, thematic or not. And the colors were so perfect! When I expressed my doubts to my daughter she said, "Mom, just think of it as a bunch of alien space monsters with tentacles." That clinched it, and the fabric now spoke "boy" to me. I convinced myself I could use this fabric I'd been saving as a backing. I did not have enough length of fabric for one vertical seam so I had to piece it in two directions.

The match came out great though. Sometimes the printing drifts relative to the grain of the fabric but I lucked out this time. The tip of the seam ripper pints to the intersection of the fabric joints and they are well camouflaged.

THREAD COLOR DECISION FOR FMQ
Next up was the choices of thread color to use for the free motion quilting part. For the stripes on the left I picked the lowest green; the top was too olive-y, the middle was too yellow-y but the bottom one was just right. For the dots on the right, I planned to sew around them so I wanted to match the background and not the dots, Turquoise thread selection became moot and I just needed to settle on closest white to the background. I picked the lowest thread with a slight cream tint. For the backing I also wanted an off-white. The beige-ish one on the right seemed a better fit than the grayish one on the left. 

Choosing thread color for the astronaut fabric was a trickier endeavor. This time I wanted the lines of stitching to show, not just be a source of texture. The color needed to hint at the trail of a spacewalk, as a gray rather than a black. The far left gray was variegated, the far right gray was too taupe-y, but the middle gray would work well. I considered a paler gray but rejected it because lines of it meandering back and forth could be too distracting if they contrasted too much with the background.

CHOOSING STITCH PATTERN

A lot of quilting is about texture, I wanted the turquoise dots to pop and give a bumpy sensation. I mentioned this to my daughter and she said "Oh, like eyeballs." I mumbled, "Er... not really... more like orbits around a planet... or just plain bumps...?" For the stripes I merely wanted them to feel like ridges as on a wash board or corduroy. For outer space I aimed for a pattern more visual but one that would avoid obscuring the astronauts or the earths. Meandering around those objects with a wandering line gives the effect of a walk in space. The following photos are of my practice sample and finished closeups of sections of the quilt.

BINDING AND LABELS

I’d gone a bit eclectic with my choice in background fabrics so perhaps it was time be more conservative for the binding fabric. The lower left fabric had all the right colors – gray, greens, turquoise – and I was tempted once again on that basis but decided to reject it because it had a blurred feel and all the other fabrics were crisp. The gray speckled option in the middle was a strong possibility and the orange specks reflected the orange stars of the space fabric; but for some unexplained reason it seemed too ominous to me, like a battle ship. It was best to stay tame and use a remnant of the space fabric for the binding. Keeping that little amount in my stash would be a nuisance and of course I could not throw it out. Sometimes decisions are made for the good of the stash as well as the good of the quilt. I made a piped binding with some orange speckled fabric from my stash so I could call a bit of attention to that array of the stars. There is a full tutorial on this binding technique at Susie's Magic Binding. I have used it before with slightly modified dimensions. I joined 1⅜" wide gray novelty print to 1⅝" wide orange speckle print and attached the two toned binding ⅜" from the edge, from the front and from the back. The oversized orange accent color peeks out like faux piping.

So far I’d manage to make every bit of this quilt from my stash – front, backing, batting, binding, even the pattern. One of my 2022 quilting goals was to be a closet quilter, working with what I already had and buying nothing new. I almost succeeded 100% on this quilt and then … aaargh… the labels. I did have lovely turquoise grosgrain ribbon that I could have machine embroidered in white, but I did not approve of the lack of subtlety against the cream backing. I had to go out to the store and buy a roll of cream grosgrain ribbon that I lettered in turquoise. And the name? I toyed with Astronaut (too formal) or with the alliterative Spinning in Space to reflect the pinwheel blocks (too long). The proposals of Outer Space, or Space Walk did not sit quite right so I kept mulling over other options. I was riding in the car with my husband when I asked him,  "What’s another word for “astronaut?”  He said “spaceman?” And that instantly felt just right for a little boy. So Spaceman it became. When you know, you know.

COMPLETION
Spaceman measures 56" x 56". Without further ado, here are the photos of the finished quilt: 

• from the front with a closeup of the binding and corner detail
• draped gracefully (somewhat so) over a chair
• from the back with a closeup of the labeling.

I hope that the little boy who is receiving Spaceman will enjoy

• having tummy-time on it
• crawling on it
• rolling on it
• spitting up on it
• napping on it
• playing on it and 
• perhaps dragging it around when he gets older