The Ever Kelly Playmat

So about a month and a half ago, I found this posting on the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild about a new-to-here fabric designer that needed samples made for Spring Quilt Market. She had some really cute prints, so I figured why not? Kelly and I chatted and planned over email. When her fabrics arrived, we finally met up over lunch and she literally loaded me up with fabric. Her pattern in hand, I set off to make her cute playmat (finished at about 50"x60").

(Photo by Kathy Mack, Pink Chalk Fabrics)

It reminds me of sandy beaches and cute island living. You can see her version of it in different fabrics in the patterns at the bottom. Given how adorable everything looks here, there should be no surprise that Kelly won a booth award, right? ;) Actually, no, most of the cuteness is elsewhere in the booth, starting with that green fuzzy thing in the bottom left corner.  You can see more of the Ever Kelly booth on her blog!

So, on my experience with making the thing: it was my first time doing fusible appliqué. I started out following her instructions (adapted from other techniques) and ended up doing my own version*. (I am typing out some notes on that, but unless you're making the pattern, or something very similar, it won't make any sense at all. :) )

And, believe it or not, this is only the third major piece that I have free motion quilted. The one prior was done in Dec 2010, so it had um, been awhile. (I did a lot of straight line, and small swap item "quilting" in 2011.)  But with a deadline looming, I managed to both "remember" FMQ, and try out three new quilting patterns, to boot. In fair disclosure, I had been practicing by doodling new patterns for weeks, so it wasn't entirely a cold-start. Also, I chose thread colors that disappeared into the fabric, so even if I screwed up (and I do have a number of ugly moments), it's not immediately noticeable. There is a long, stretched meander in the water, loopy daisies in the meadows, and square meanders and "loops" around the houses. I am pleased I "learned" how to do loopy meander. I tried and tried to do the casual loops on paper, but I kept getting myself in awkward corners. But on actual fabric, I had no problems at all. So if you can see the pattern, but can't quite draw it, you might try stitching it anyway. It could work!

I bias-connected the binding on this one. It would've been so much easier to do a straight-join at the end, but I thought I should "do it right" this time... it does make for a less bulky join, but oh, so much more finicky to make! The binding is part of the 4-in-1 print

The back I have yet to get pictures of, as the quilt literally left my hands as soon as it came off the machine. But it is backed in the turquoise houses, with a bit of basic piecing to "stretch" the width.

All said and done, this is an adorable line of fabric, with cute little details you don't notice until you sit down and get your hands busy playing. I'm really looking forward to making some of my own projects with all the extras Kelly gave me, so stay tuned!




* If you really want to read, here are my rambling notes on what I did:
All the pieces have a straight edge (or corner), so I only traced/transferred the non-straight part of the pattern pieces (plus enough of the straight edges for alignment) to the paper-backed fusible web. I trimmed about 1/4" to 1/2" outside of the pattern line. Then, I trued either a side or corner on the fabric,  matched up the relevant sides of the pattern piece on the fusible, and carefully fused just the outer 3/4" to 1" of the edge of the fusible pattern piece; about 1/4" to 1/2" on either side of the pattern line. I then carefully cut out the middle of the unfused pattern piece free, before fusing the strip to the fabric more securely.

Kelly provided separate pattern pieces for the yellow "beach" strips and the "landmasses", but I didn't trust my ability to cut two pattern pieces out of fabric that would nest perfectly into one another without leaving a gap. Instead, I fused the darker pieces to the yellow fabric. If you cut big pieces of the yellow/"roads" fabric, you can get away with just under 2 yards of background fabric, rather than piecing it together from 4 yards. Depending on the colors you choose, you may want to trim away fabric layers underneath after topstitching the appliqué down.

I thought there were a few advantages to this method. One, I could use the "whole sheet" of the fusible to keep my edge from distorting rather than the skinny cross strips. The pieces are big enough that your bolt of fusible is going to be smaller and the paper won't lie flat. Two, if I traced the bordering pieces (yellow print) first, it would allow me to use the same fusible piece for pieces "inside".