...Boys Cot/Pram/Car Quilt with 'Cars' Theme

Hooray!! My Cars quilt is finished!!

Last Christmas I received a sewing machine from my Mum. At the time, I didn't really know how to sew. I'd done a bit at high school, and my aunty Mez and I used to do a lot of projects on the holidays, but I had little to no confidence in my sewing abilities. One of the first projects I did when I received my machine was....wait for it.... a quilt.

Yes, I am insane

I went way overboard wanting to make one for my unborn child. The pattern I used was FAR to complex for a new sewer, let alone a new quilter! So I then found this pattern. 

When I was pregnant, we didn't find out if Ava was a boy or a girl, so I made so many different combinations of colours and styles of this pattern-girly, gender neutral etc. I mean, I think I have literally now made this same pattern 8 times now. I LOVE it! I've also made a few as gifts for little bubbies that have come along the way, and added my own flair here and there.

I have used this 'recipe' (pattern) to make quilts ever since I discovered it about 10 months ago and I've been quite addicted to creating many different quilts with it over that time. 

It is an absolutely awesome quilt and tutorial and you can find it here at the Moda Bakeshop.

**If you're interested in making the same quilt, follow her tutorial as it's almost flawless and very well written!**

I made this quilt for a good friends new little bubba, Etienne, a few months ago. I wanted to choose a particular theme and I decided to go for the whole space theme, including some Star Wars fabric, as I know Eti's Dad loves Star Wars! 

Here's what Etienne's looks like

Etienne's brother Finn just LOVES the space quilt, so I thought it only fair that I make him is own, so here is my latest task. Finn just loves the Cars movies, so that's the theme I'm going for here. I bought these fabrics on eBay from the States and the UK, as well as some plain prints from Spotlight.

Here's what I did. 

I divided the fabrics up into 25 different squares shared between these 8 different fabrics. 

I then paired them off into 9 pairs (leaving the others aside) and sewed them together, right sides facing, along the diagonal.  

I then cut through the middle, opened them out, then ironed out the seams-as pictured.  

Lay out your squares in the configuration pictured, ensuring you have no patterns touching. It's not too disastrous if you do, but it always looks best if your fabrics are well spaced out.

Cut some plain fabric into ten 1.5" strips. I use plain calico, but a contrasting coloured fabric would look great too!

Attach your strips onto your squares with fabric right sides facing, then open up as pictured before attaching your next square 

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Lay out your strips in the correct configuration so they can be attached correctly!

 Attach your long strips of beige fabric to each of the joined strips, sew around your border and this is what you're left with.

More to come tomorrow!!

Aaaaaand, I'm back! To continue with the racing car theme, I decided I'd use the checkered fabric as the outer border to symbolise the racing flag. I decided to make this border 2 1/2" thick as opposed to the 2" mentioned in the pattern.

Then for my favorite part (this is where I wish there was a sarcasm font...) Batting and binding. Gah!!

I pinned the quilt top to our rug in the lounge room to have it as stretched out as possible. I then layered the batting over  the pinned quilt top, followed by the backing of the main Cars print. Here is the sandwich of the 3 materials pictured

Then comes the pinning process. You need to make sure that you are starting from the cenre and working your way out. I was also really careful to ensure that the quilt top was pinned to the backing all the way around as I was pretty stretched for backing material so made sure that the entire quilt cover was accounted for!

 Here is the pinned backing

Ok, nearly there...

The next step of the process was to quilt and bind my quilt.

Quilting
I quilted my project by sewing along every single white piece of sashing on each side. This takes a fair bit of time, but has a great effect not only on the front, but the back too as it forms really cool diamonds on the back. I used red cotton so it stands out well!

Binding
I followed this wonderful tutorial here to bind my quilt- it's very well written and easy to follow but I'll go over it here too!

Cut your binding sashes into about four 2.5" strips. You may find that you need a bit more or less, but you need plenty to go all the way around your quilt.

Join each strip as pictured, this way you will not have big bumps and lumps as you're sewing along.






 










Snip off the corner so not to have too much bulk

Begin sewing your sashing around the edge of your quilt. Start in the middle of a side, ensuring that you leave about 6 inches of loose sash before sewing. This will be tidied up later! 
















When you get to your first edge, leave about 1/2" to the edge, then fold the strip up, as pictured.

Fold the strip over itself, as pictured then continue sewing along the quilt edge as before, ensuring raw edges are facing out.

 The next few steps aren't pictured (I must have been too enthralled in my sewing to take some happy snaps...)

Follow either link here or here to finish the binding ( I use a combination of both!)

Then, get yourself a cuppa and a good movie that you've seen before (you've not going to be able to look up at the screen too often!) and get blind stitching. I don't know it it's my lack of ability, but this took me a few hours. I certainly got quicker as I got the hang of it, but it always takes me aaaaages!

It should look like this

 Now it's time to add some flair. I use a contrasting coloured felt to add the name. You don't have to of course, but as I'd done this for Finn's brother, it was only fair that Finn got the same!

This is another in-front-of-the-telly job.

Cut out your letters

Pin them on

Either blanket stitch or straight stitch your letters on, I chose to straight stitch mine this time.

 And here's the finished result!!

Depending on what day it is, you may find this post at any of these parties!