Custom Telescope Cover - Father's Day Gift

Father's Day gifts can be hard, because the best gifts for dad's cater to their particular interests and hobbies.  In our family, that means gifts to support dad's astronomy hobby.  (Note:  I work for Fairfield on an ongoing basis and they provide me with free products, but I was NOT compensated for this post.  All opinions and ideas are 100% my own.)

Eric's interest in astronomy has been growing for several years and now he's acquired almost as many telescopes as I have sewing machines (not all our own though.  He has a couple on loan.)  He's a high school science teacher, so he runs an astronomy club and has been sharing his love of astronomy with friends and neighbors too.

It's been fun to see our kids get hooked on the heavens.

One of them came with a cover for the lense, but not a cover for the whole telescope.  Of course we don't leave it outside, but best for the telescope to have something to protect it from dust, moisture, and extreme temperatures.

So I put my quilting skills to good use and made him a cover.

I didn't do a full tutorial because I made several measuring errors and it got put together piece-meal each telescope is different, so yours will have different measurements.

Here's what you'll want to include if you decide to make your own.

• Cool astronomy fabric
• 1 layer of your favorite batting (I used Nature-Fil™ Bamboo Blend Batting 36″ X 45″)
• 1 layer Shield Liner Fabric
• 1 layer Solarize Liner Fabric
• (At the time I made this there were the best materials.  Fairfield has since come out with Aluminor which can take the place of the everything except the cute fabric...although it looks cool enough, you could actually just make one with aluminor which includes the shield liner, solarize, and a filler all in one.)

And if you're thinking of making your own, you'll want to measure the distance around your telescope at the widest point and add a few inches...we'll call this your diameter.  You'll basically be making a small quilt with this width and the other dimension the depth of your telescope and then sewing it into a circle.  Bind the lower edge of your cover the way you would for a quilt.  For the circle at the top, you'll need to cut a piece with the same diameter (distance around) that we just used, and add a 1/2 inch seam allowance all the way around.  Sew the main cover piece to your top circle with a 1/2 inch seam allowance.  Sew your cover closed along the side.

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