Introducing the Rockin’ Rocket Ship Pattern

I’m so excited to introduce our new Rockin’ Rocket Ship Pattern!  This pattern was especially inspired by my little nephew, who will pick up anything that fits in one hand and looks vaguely like a spaceship, and sit for hours making it fly through the air.  I wanted to create a pattern that was cute to look at (I mean, if a bunch of toys are going to be strewn out on your floor, they might as well be cute toys, right?!)  that could be easily played with.  This space ship has various shapes and sizes of wings and fins made specifically to help little hands easily pick it up and fly it through the air, just like my nephew.  And at about 7 inches long, it can easily be picked up and flown by even the littlest hands!

The example above is the one I made up out of Riley Blake’s new, adorable fabric line Rocket Age.  It’s seriously perfect for this pattern, and it comes in flannel as well, which would make such an adorable, cuddly rocket.

Our pattern testers did such an awesome job (as always!) and I loved seeing what they came up with.

I loved the fussy cut monkey and bugs fabrics used for windows!  (hey, you never know what form aliens will take!  Plus, the first astronauts from Earth were monkeys, if you want to be technical, so I’d say these guys are pretty accurate)  It’s hard to tell in this photo, but the spaceship with the bugs also added a layer of clear plastic on the window pieces to make it look like a real window (how fun!).

The addition of ‘fire’ coming out the back of the space ship was another fun, creative twist.  (check out those adorable ribbons on the example above.  That would be so fun to fly through the air!) And I loved the detail work on the wings of the green and blue rocket below- those top stitches really made the wings look so great.

As far as time goes, our more experienced testers finished this product in 1-2 hours, while the testers who are still a bit new to sewing took about 3-4 hours.  The beginner sewists were able to finish the pattern alright, needing to spend a bit of extra attention to sewing the opposing curves on the window pieces (the one step that takes this pattern from a Beginner Level to Advanced Beginner), but once they read through the directions carefully most of them were able to complete it very well.  If you’re a beginner and feel a bit nervous to try that step,  check out exactly what that will be like by looking at our Sewing Opposing Curves blog post- it’s full of photos to guide you along and the pieces I am using as examples are the actual pieces from this pattern, so you can see exactly what it should look like.

Last of all, depending on location, some of them had a bit of trouble finding fusible fleece (it’s what I ask for inside the wings and fins to give them structure, but still look like they’ve got a bit of stuffing to them).  In place of it, they used fusible interfacing or basted quilt batting or normal fleece onto the wrong side of the fabric before sewing the wings.  All of them said the results on those replacements worked great, so feel free to check your project closet first and use what you’ve got on hand.

Whew!  I think that’s all for the information side of things- I just feel like I need to add all the great tips my testers have taught me so other people can try them!  Hope you have a fantastic time making some adorable rocket ships- we’d love for you to share your creations on our Facebook page so we can see how they turn out!