Someone loves my Car playmat

I've been getting some traffic from Zen DIY web site about Tori's Quilt Play mat as part of the Zen Kids web site. Scroll down the page, we are about half way down and there are lots more ideas for making a handmade play mat.

I've been itching to make another one again, to see how I can improve the process and make it quicker. I was thinking that perhaps the back could be done in a nice soft cord or a fleece. And the road signs could be a quilt square rather than appliqued.

Alternatively, I could try my hand at writing a pattern. Now that all my text book writing is done for the year, I am itching for another writing project.

The quilt has gotten so much wear so far, it has gone to Germany, loitered around the back of the car on occasion and of course it has been played with as a car play mat.

The blood red merino backing has washed up so well (machine cold wash wool mix) and the cats love it. Draping themselves over the top of the quilt at every chance they get.

So if I actually wrote a pattern, is there anyone that would test the pattern for me?

Finished Car playmat Quilt at last!

It really has been so cold here in Melbourne. Even though my market was indoors on Sunday I was still cold, probably symptomatic of the cold I am coming down with.

In between sales I sat and hemmed the binding around the Car playmat Quilt I have been painstakingly making for my daughter. Finally finished, I can sit back and bask in the loveliness of finishing yet another quilt.

Tori has already had fun playing with the quilt with her cars and walking up and down it like she would be walking down a street.

I chose a Michael Miller stripe for the bias. I still haven't quite got the hang of doing the binding as a continuous strip of fabric, so I sew all 4 sides separately and when stitching make sure that my corners are nice and neat. I like the look of a handstitched bias ...

For those who are interested, I used some strips from a Happy Campers Jelly Roll, some strips from a Breath of Avignon Jelly Roll, some Kona solids. The trains were a Japanese print I got ages ago. The roads are black homespun and the road signs are a print that again, I bought ages ago from GJ's in East Brunswick.

I backed the fabric with some 100% wool blanket weave, but if you wanted to re-purpose a blanket you could do that as well. I have a bit of woolen fluff coming through on the hand stitching, but I hope that with a wash it might disappear.

The car signs are appliqued on using the trapunto method that Don't look now uses in her quilts. Sewing the applique onto a batting back and then trimming around the applique.

The quilt was hand quilted used Perle in black and white. Now that I have a ironed out all the mistakes and perfected the round corners on the road, I am hoping to make another one, but this time it might be a bit quicker in construction!

This is how cold it is in Melbourne, both my female cats curled up with each other ...