Playmat Quilt For Amelia's Car

Last summer, I bought an adorable handmade wood car for my newborn granddaughter at an art fair. I've had nearly a year to plan a quilted playmat for her. It is embarrassing to say that I didn't actually start it until last week. In my defense, my sewing machine and most of my other crafty stuff have been inaccessible up until very recently. So here it finally is, in time for her first birthday! A playmat quilt for Amelia's car:

Let me apologize for not having a fabulous picture. It is hard to photograph something that is 5 1/2 feet by 5 feet and get all of the detail. In order to make up for quality pictures, I have opted for quantity. 

When I saw Accuquilt's Go! Cute Car die, I hoped it would be close enough in scale to work with the wood car.  Then I saw that they sold digitized designs to make the applique even cuter and more versatile. That was what sold me on getting the die for this project.  It would save me an incredible amount of time!

There are more digitized designs available that are not on the quilt. I bought nine of the embroidery designs and added one extra Star Wars themed car made from scraps leftover from another project.

In lieu of attaching a  quilt label, I sewed directly onto the backing fabric. This was very easy using the built-in alphabet stitches on my sewing machine. 

This quilt was made entirely with scraps from my stash. Including the batting! I pieced the batting together by zigzag stitching four smaller pieces. This quilt will hopefully get thrown on the floor and used. If it gets taken on picnics or to the beach, all the better. It didn't make sense to purchase new fabric for something that I hope shows a lot of wear in a few years.

Playmat Quilt for Amelia's Car with a Star Wars Tie-in

The cute pink traffic cones came from Target. If she brings her quilted playmat to my house, we will make buildings out of boxes or other things from around the house.
This isn't the type of thing I usually make, but it was fun to do. I sketched it on graph paper and then drew it up in EQ8.  And then revised it as I was making it. Tonight, I am flying to Tucson for the birthday party. Hopefully, we will get to play with her new car before I have to come back home.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Beverly