Kickstarter is full of dubious ideas, but it's also home to some truly great ones—like Constellation Quilt, a handmade blanket that charts the night sky in lovely gold and white thread. When the project wrapped up its campaign June, it had reached more than ten times its original $10,000 goal.
Constellation Quilts are exactly what they sound like: A wide swath of turquoise cotton, darned with details of the night sky at the 40th parallel in the Northern Hemisphere in October. There's Orion, the Big and Little Dippers, and even the Milky Way in general. The idea, explain its creators at the Brooklyn-based design studio Haptic Lab, was to make an object that was "a learning tool, a functional art object and modern heirloom," all in one.
Though they're fairly expensive at $279, keep in mind that each massive quilt it made by hand. In fact, they've been so popular that they've been sold out on Haptic Lab. Luckily, the studio is now doing a holiday pre-order that guarantees you'll be able to get your grubby paws on a quilt by the holidays.
And if that doesn't pan out, there's always the $38 DIY version, which comes with everything you need to make your own Northern and Southern Hemisphere versions. NOW, GO FORTH AND QUILT! [Haptic Lab; Thanks Lauren!]