A Project Of Planets

One gal I worked with several years ago has a sweet little boy now.  She has had me make him two quilts already and now as he is getting bigger she requested another.

This quilt's theme:  the solar system!

I gave her some ideas from what I could find online and she chose a very simple one.  It is simply appliqued planets on a sea of blue!

Choosing the fabrics for each planet was fun and I was able to use some more of my stash.

We did include Pluto in our project as we both learned it as a planet in school.  It is also one of her little guy's favorites.

I am not the biggest fan of actually doing applique so I was looking for an easy way to do it.  I went with a stitch and flip method (not sure if it has a name) to give me my nice, smooth rounded planet edges to stitch down.  I cut out two of each planets main fabric, placed them right sides together and then stitched all the way around.  Next I pulled the layers away from each other and cut a slit in the back fabric big enough for me to pull the other layer through.  I pulled them right side out and pressed them flat.  It worked great for circles!  I did have to clip the curved seam allowance to get a smooth round circle.

The sun was a bit harder with it's rays round about it.   Clipping all of thos little spikes took awhile!  I thought about using a fusible interfacing for the back layer and making sure it ended on the outside.  I think one could just fuse them in place then.  The day I started I was short on interfacing and hurting my brain trying to think how each part should go.  Haha!

I had a great little cheering section going for this project! Don't worry he was not on the table for long and was always supervised.  To attach planet I did a simple, straight stitch around the perimeter as close to the edge as possible.

I am not a perfectionist so I only momentarily thought about my distances and proportions with the planets sizes.  Here they are all attached! 

To make the orbit lines really stand out and for the ability to ease possible puckers I chose to hand stitch with a white cotton string/thread.  It was probably the hardest part of the whole quilt!  I drew them on with a fabric pencil but had to adjust more than once as I went to keep there from being orbits super close or too far apart for an appealing look.

I choose to wash and dry the quilts I do for people.  I throw in a color catcher and just enjoy seeing it's wrinkly goodness when it comes out.  I made the mistake of not prewashing the backing fabric this time.  It caused a little bit of puckering by a couple of planets.  I just machine quilted around those specific problem planets and was able to fix it.

Her little guy wanted some stars in there too.  To make them big enough to see I hand embroidered them on with embroidery floss.  I am very happy with the result!

 I usually use scraps from the project or something coordinating from my stash for a backing.  I decided to do something special for this one and ordered this fun solar system fabric.

She said he loved it and I am pleased to hear it!

Alissa