Unleash The Beast!

It's lovely Huw's birthday this week, and he is officially the hardest person to buy gifts for.  He's very closely followed by a couple of people, but there is no doubt he wins the award (although I wouldn't know what to buy him for his prize which would make the whole award thing totally pointless...)

 I started worrying thinking about what to get him for his birthday months ago, which is when the idea of The Beast started forming.  Huw loves campervans, and a few years ago bought a VW T25 called Sunny and I thought it would be nice, and pretty darn practical, to make him a special Sunny quilt.







I bought the basic pattern for this quilt at Jukebox Quilts; it's called Another Day in Paradise.  Remember when I made this quilt for Siblings Together I'd used left over pieces of cotton shirts?  Well those shirts were tracked down for this quilt.  As I needed so many different fabrics for this and no big pot of money to use I used a lot of re purposed fabrics as well as some favourites from my stash.  I love giving fabric a new lease of life, and being made especially for Huw and his vintage van, full of history and memories, this project lends itself perfectly to the cause.  I've spent a lot of hours putting this together, and the collection of fabrics can't help but make me smile: some of my favourite vintage fabrics alongside modern polka dots, left over project scraps next to remnants of old dresses, cuttings from garish surf shorts neighbouring vintage bandannas - it's all going on!







All 25 vans are intentionally different, and Sunny takes centre square, driving the opposite way to his friends.  50 buttons are sewn on for hub caps, with each van having their own unique set.  This required a LOT of button shopping, which I managed to endure (read 'indulge in').  There are also pieces of ribbon, embroidery and a couple of teeny charms to decorate the vans.






There were a few swear words and a fairly substantial sulk in our house a few nights before the big day, when a red kayak bled colour onto two of the vans whilst being washed.  As nothing would shift the dye, I ended up having to take part of the quilt to pieces to replace the ruined fabrics and put it back together again.  Once finished me and Alfie headed out to the fields to take some photos.  Well technically Alfie busied himself using the quilt as a tent, getting his bottom into most of the photos and getting totally lathered in mud, meaning he ended up in the bath as soon as we'd got home.  He looked pretty pleased with himself post bath though!