Geek Crafts

sewclever posted this Yoda Days of the Week Tea Towel over on flickr (and her blog).

Back in the day, housewives tended to do chores in a certain order to make sure everything got done, and it was such a common scheme that day-of-the-week dishtowels emblazoned with that day’s chore were everywhere. Days of the Week tea towels usually feature images of animals or cute childrendepicting the days chores: Laundry, Baking, Cleaning, etc. sewclever asked a friend, Dagwood, to create days of the week images featuring Yoda, and Thursday’s chore is foraging.

I hope she finishes the set, because I can’t wait to see the Yoda version of the other chores!

• Yoda Tea Towel on flickr
• Lots of Neat Stuff

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Craftster user Jatoha crocheted this awesome Yoda Hut for her daughter’s Star Wars figures. Freehand.

• Crocheted Yoda Hut

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Star Wars blogger and book author extraordinaire Bonnie Burton recently had a chance to try out the new inflatable Jabba the Hutt costume when it arrived in the Star Wars Shop! She wrote about her field trip around the LucasFilm campus and the closest Starbucks, and even tried out some dance moves inside the giant suit (there’s a video to prove it!).

costume photos by Matt Martin

Bonnie says:

The cool thing about this costume is that it literally keeps you cool while you wear it thanks to an internal, battery-operated fan inside that inflates it so you actually look like the Hutt himself. The head of Jabba isn’t attached to the body of the costume, which makes it a fun thing to wear just on its own.

You can find the costume here, read about her adventures here, and see tons more photos here. Don’t miss Bonnie’s fantastic Star Wars Kids Crafts archive, either — she offers tons of project tutorials to try, including this super cute Yoda doll. After seeing her demo at Maker Faire, my nephew and I made one together — one of my favorite craft projects ever!

• Jabba the Hutt Costume Test Run on StarWars.com
• All the Jabba photos on flickr
• Jabba the Hutt costume in the Star Wars Shop
• Star Wars Kids Crafts

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I mentioned last month that I was hoping to make a Yoda costume for my daughter Pearl, and yay, I finished it! I wrote it up as a tutorial for CRAFT: as part of their big Halloween round-up.

This is a super easy project to do if you sew — I finished it within a week. My favorite parts to make were the hat (I used Heather Mann‘s tutorial and actually made a little set of three in different sizes),

and the snake.

Please let me know if you make a Yoda costume too, I’d love to see it!

• Kids Yoda Costume on CRAFT:
• Halloween archive on CRAFT:
• Yoda Hat Tutorial on Dollar Store Crafts

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I went to the Oregon State Fair last weekend and got to see some pretty rad geek crafts there! In the Legos competition, this magnificent Yoda took a second prize.

In the 4-H Hall, this woodburned Twilight plaque won a Blue Award.

The 4-H Ceramics competition spotlighted some gorgeously intricate dragons — both of them took Blue Awards, too.

And I loved these 4-H science-fair projects — the illustrated poster explaining the recycled rocket and the self-starting electric motor were both awesome!

The Oregon State Fair runs through Labor Day — if you’re nearby, don’t miss it! And if you’ve seen (or made!) any other geek crafts at your state fair, I’d love to hear about them too…

UPDATE: Thanks to zebuladesign for sharing her flickr photos of geek crafts at the Michigan State Fair with us!

Gollum cake:

action figures in the Children’s Collections competition:

a gnome in the Children’s Drawings competition:

• Oregon State Fair
• Michigan State Fair
• zebuladesign on flickr

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My friend Heather Mann is always making great stuff (like the Star Wars finger puppets Renee posted about last week) but my favorites from her lately have to be her Yoda crafts. She made this fantastic fleece hat and wrote a tutorial for it on her Dollar Store Crafts blog — the total cost for the project is under $1!

Heather also did a Star Wars swap over at Craftster recently and made this awesome appliqued Yoda market bag in Jedi robe colors for her partner. You can use her instructions and this free morsbag pattern to make one for yourself, too.

Heather’s hat tutorial has totally inspired me to make a head-to-toe Yoda costume for my one-year-old daughter Pearl for Halloween. I’ll post more pictures when I’ve made my version — I’m figuring out the robe, snake and walking stick right now!

• Yoda Hat
• Yoda Market Bag
• Morsbag pattern

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