I was a little optimistic about my design plans for this quilt but I had to scale it back to a more simple design. I think it would be best if I attacked my first value quilt with a pattern. At least with more pre-planning.
This quilt came about as the result of a successful retail ploy...the messy markdown table ploy. Don't get me wrong, it's a great ploy and I don't regret falling for it. I have really enjoyed working with these fabrics. It was so exciting to find a few lovely fabrics in my stash that were not my normal style but that blended and enhanced my sale-table fabric find. Two were winnings from quilt guild meetings. I am a new member as of 2014 and I can't wait to share this quilt with them.
I am the the only quilter in the group who leans toward the modern aesthetic. It is great to be accepted by this lovely group of talented ladies. They share the most amazing pieces.
The fabrics can be seen in the photo below. The traditional star on the top right and the hand dyed piece on the bottom left.
Here is the layout I am going with. Well just over half since it won't all fit on my dining table. I really need to get cracking on a design wall soon.
Blocks or rows? I chose to go rows. It seemed to be the best choice to keep the layout straight without a design wall.
I am pinning the rows together now for the first pass. There are fifteen rows. I will add a border with a little extra detail to be revealed at the finish. Don't get too excited, it won't be that special, remember I am a novice at this.
It all started back at Highlands Middle School in Kennewick, WA, 1975. One day I heard an excited teacher telling a fellow teacher about her new car. I didn't think too much about it until I sat down in my comp class later that day and spied said car just outside the window. I was instantly smitten by the cute lines and especially that adorable little bunny gracing the rear hatch. My "dream car" was set in stone.
Growing up on a car lot I would get to drive a lot of fun cars through high school but I was denied my dream ride since my dad never had a VW Rabbit on the lot. I sold a cute little orange Fiat to help pay for college and I was driving a red Renault when I met my hubby but I never forgot about that cute little Rabbit.
My heart was broken when hubby informed me that VW had rebadged the Rabbit as the Golf in 1983. My dream was crushed...until one day in 2006 I saw this...
It was Back!!! My dream was rekindled and the timing was perfect. My youngest son was 15, just short of getting his license and I was so ready to ditch my last Mom-SUV, a giant Nissan Armada, white of course. The car hunt was on for a slightly used 2006 VW Rabbit.
Well, as some of you may know the Golf/Rabbit has an alter-ego called the GTI. The original Hot-Hatch. Hubby was pushing for the GTI while I was thinking of nothing but that cute little bunny clad hatch. He finally talked me into test driving a GTI.
Wow, talk about fun. I had to have one and Hubby said he'd add an aftermarket bunny if I had to have it on my hatch. Well, I still do not have the bunny on my rear. (correction: I happen to have added one yesterday) but I do have a mischievous red smile.
We found my GTI in January of 2007. It only had 3,000 miles on it and still smelled like new. A guy had traded his BMW for it in October 2006 and then traded the GTI on another BMW in December of 2006. I guess the GTI was a fun temporary fun ride while he waited for his special order BMW.
And fun it is...The Mark V GTI was always a favorite of Jeremy Clarkson and the Top Gear crew in the Hot-Hatch and affordable sporty car segments. And during the Mark V GTI run it seemed to grace the cover of at least on major car mag monthly.
Now they are up to the Mark VII! I feel like I've only had the car a few months. Hubby wants me to move up to a larger car but I always tell him he will have to pry my cold stiff fingers off the wheel of this car. It is my Dream Car after all.
Now for the quilty part...
I rekindled my quilt-sewing hobby in December of 2012 by trying out a few mug rugs. Within a month I had started on my first lap quilt. My attempt at quilting in the 1990's was abandoned when I could not get the hang of using my walking foot so I was a bit nervous about attacking the quilting stage of this lap quilt. I came up with a great idea...practice on something smaller like a baby size quilt. My circle did not have any new or on the way babies at the time so I decided to make something for me.
Where could I use a teeny tiny quilt? How about my teeny tiny car! A quilt to match my car that I could use while traveling so hubby can be comfy cool and I can be toasty warm. Brilliant!!!
The GTI has an adorable red grin and charcoal and black leather seats so my color palette was set. I chose a not-too-babyish tutorial with a downloadable PDF pattern by Elizabeth Hartman called Charm Squares Redux. I headed to the local quilt store and purchased my fabric. I wish I could tell you what each one is but I didn't pay attention at the time. I think the gray is a Bella Solid. The red and white print is my favorite. I like the gray Christmas print because the tint is just a bit "off" from the other grays and it adds a fun pop. It does have two Riley Blake Chevrons. The large gray on gray in the piecing and the binding is a tiny gray chevron. For the quilting I relied on Elizabeth Hartman's Free-Motion Quilting Basics and tried my hand at an overlapping box pattern.
It is always such a blessing to see all the babies get dedicated on Mother's Day at church. Our church is not that large but we had nine in the 9:30am service and fifteen in the 11:15am service and we have two more services to go. Wow!
On the way in they handed out stickers. I am "Mom-tastic" today and my husband is wearing "I (Heart) My Mom." We had our picture taken in front of an adorable backdrop.
I have a finish to share but it will have to wait until we break out the Nikon. This one was a year in the making. Not because it was difficult, just because it was the project that kept getting put aside for projects with deadlines. I will be sharing it in a couple of days. You can see a progress picture here.
For now I will share my crafty Target finds.
I went in for cards and a small pair of craft scissors and couldn't resist checking out the Clearance end-tops. I love those things don't you? Now, it had been about a month since my last visit and my search for scissors took me back to the back wall. Look what I found on clearance!
So cute and my favorite color to boot. These cases may be old news but I love the simplicity. It was less than $8.00. Not as cheap as my last iPhone case find. This Double Wedding Ring design was only $1.00! It is a near perfect case too.
Slick back for easy pocket stowage and retrieval and slightly grippy sides to reduce unexpected flights. Its hard to tell in this picture but there are tiny orange dots at the intersections and the grippy sides are orange too.
I also found these beauties in Bed & Bath for $1.48 each. Just what I needed for craft storage. The canister is now set up with supplies for my Heather Bailey embroidery projects.
A neighbor had a yard sale on Saturday and I picked up a Linda Seward book for twenty-five cents. There are two patterns of interest in this book for future projects.
Well, my younger son just got home from Formula Drift at Road Atlanta. Time to celebrate the day with the two guys I have at home. Older son is still in Alabama. I'll be there later this week to see him graduate! Let's just call this Mother's Week for me this year.
UPDATE:
This post has been linked up to Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday.
My WIP is the Heather Bailey Birds & Branches cover project. I am down to the last three colors. My plan is to make several of the designs into wall hangings.
