EZ Camper Quilt

Some friends of ours are the parents of Lily, one of the sweetest little girls I know. We know them through the Volkswagen community. They have a 1965 EZ Camper that is beautiful. Every year there is a big Volkswagen Weekend in the Tampa area. One of the shows that weekend is called Bulli Brigade and it's a gathering of VW transporter enthusists. VW transporters are the Microbuses, Single Cabs, Double Cabs, Campers, etc.

Isn't she adorable?

In honor of Lily's first Bulli Brigade last November I made her an EZ Camper quilt using the colors from her dad's bus to influence my fabric choices. It's a combination of red, white and black sewn together using the dissappearing 9-patch pattern (which I found through Sew, Mama, Sew's quilting month). Then I made an applique EZ Camper replica out of felt for the front. I used the applique tutorial from oh, fransson! as I am not yet proficent in applique. I even made the VW symbol on the front of the bus by lowering the dog-legs.

The back is lined with 100% cotton plaid pattern to resemble the curtain fabric on the bus windows. (You can see the curtain fabric in the first picture.)

I used the stitch-in-the-ditch method for the quilting. I am practicing my free-motion quilting techique, but it isn't quite there yet. Then I hand stitched the binding. A lot of people do not like to hand stitch the binding and will either avoid it like the plague or just machine stitch all of the binding, but I find the hand stitching really relaxing.

I was pretty pleased with the overall result. Lily gave the best reaction to the quilt. When I pulled it from my bag and handed it to her mom, Lily looked at it with wide-eyes and said, "Ooo, ooo!" That's a good thing! I have seen her say it to puppies, so I take it as a compliment.

Currently, I am planning two more baby quilts for friends expecting boys and a quilt for our bed. I'll be choosing fabric for the baby quilts soon.

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