Red for STOP, green for GO!

In a moment of reflection this afternoon I found myself sketching out the following quilt idea in my notebook. I haven't been into my sewing room in ages. School work and manuscript writing is gobbling up my time and energy. The closest I come at the moment is sketching a few ideas here and there.

But I know that in two weeks time, I have a "student non-attendance period" (school holidays) and I will have some time to tidy my room and hopefully complete a few projects. I am not looking forward to next week when I have two parent teacher nights in the one week. It is great to meet parents, but two 7am -9pm days in a row is quite taxing.

Anyway, inspired by both Ms Curlypops and my daughters current love for cars, I have been playing around in my head with an idea for a 4x4 9 block quilt (plus sashing) that would double as a play space for her cars and imagination. If you know me, you will know that the things that I make have to be functional ... Other ideas for playmats here and here!

Tori is currently playing with a few strips of black cotton drill for her "roads" and then she likes to "build a city" around her roads.

So the idea that has been kicking around is a basic quilt block construction, 16 blocks in total and then over the top of the different sections there might be a selection of things appliqued on; hotel, garden flowers and trees, houses and water waves. Then some complimentary sashing around the outside. With each square being 2 inches squared, the quilt should end up being 32 inches squared.

Still working out in my mind how to do the curved road, but I need it in there for the challenge! Not sure if I would put batting in it .. the function would definitely be as a play quilt rather than one for warmth, but I can imagine it being used in the back of the car as blanket on long drives.

But most importantly, there needs to be traffic lights, crossings and a round about. As Tori would say "Red for stop, green for go!".

I haven't done the calculations yet for the material that I need, but I suspect that I might use some of the left overs from her paintbox quilt and a dark grey for roads rather than a harsh black. Any opinions? Who would be interested in a quilt-a-long for this project?

On the quilting front. I have one baby quilt waiting for binding, two baby quilts waiting for stippling and Tori's Paintbox Quilt is slowly coming along. Her "big girl bed" arrives this weekend at long last, so I need to get on my bike and make sure that it is done for winter. I am hoping to get it professionally stippled when it is all finished.