A Little Bit 'O Drama and Nifty Solution

 

A few weeks ago Rachel, at Stitched in Color, put out a scrap challenge. Readers were asked to submit project ideas for this beautiful fat eighth scrap bundle provided by The Intrepid Thread. Four challengers were going to be selected to receive the bundle and get sewing. The rules: You must use all of the fabrics in the bundle. You could add one additional fabric. You must complete the project and share your results by February 24.

 

 

So...I shared a bit of our drama. (Do you know how difficult it is to take a good picture of your backseat?????) I do believe my story went a little like this... "So...here's the situation...my two bambinas (3&5yrs) are crazy avid readers and books have completely taken over my tiny backseat. I keep saying that I'm gonna make them one of those snazzy hanging book pouch thingies, but I just never seem to get around to it. I need a deadline...I must have a deadline (and a little fabric wouldn't hurt) or we're all going to be eaten alive by Junie B and Dora! Only you can save us from the mutant book mob!" Cuz...drama always works for the littles, why not try it myself?

 

Luckily, Rachel took pity on me...and my backseat. My lovely little bundle of yumminess arrived from The Intrepid Thread in about 2.2 seconds and I started cutting right away.

 

I'm a quilter at heart, so I tackled this project like any good little quilter would...I made mini quilts....4 of them. I measured the space in my backseat and started with one large solid mini quilt as the back piece (that's Kona charcoal as my additional fabric). Then I drew out a little diagram to figure out the size of my three pocket minis [My measurements: total dimensions 12"x22". Mini quilts are 9", 14", and 19" in height x 12" in width.] and dreamed up cutie little designs for each. You only see a couple of inches of the two middle pockets so they are only pieced along the top edge. I made sure to save a nice large hunk of the Lillybelle bouquet for front and center. I added a layer of heavy weight interfacing to the back of each quilt top, then made a sandwich with each of the pieced tops, a layer of batting, and a solid piece of charcoal for the back of each. I quilted each mini and bound the top edge of the three pockets.

 

Then came the real fun...I stacked those bad boys on top of each other and bound the whole enchilada like a quilt (if you try this home, be sure to cut your binding strips wider than normal so it will wrap around all those layers.). Just go slowly and have patience. My poor little machine was so not happy with me along that bottom edge, but she persevered:)

 

The final step was creating a strap...again, I measured my space and found that I needed a 48" strap to wrap around my headrests. I cut two 6" wide strips of charcoal, stitched them together on the short ends, trimmed the strip to 49" and folded/pressed my long strip like really big binding. I added velcro strips at the ends and sewed all the edges of the strap together. The strap was centered on the top edge of the backside of the book organizer and stitched in place. (The velcro ends were sticking out on either side, so they can wrap around the headrests and meet in the middle behind the seats.

 

One little tip (wish I'd thought of it sooner and saved myself some trouble)...that back pocket is REALLY deep. You might want to stich it closed part way down so that books don't fall into the black hole. You should really do that before you bind all the pieces together...I kinda didn't think that step through, so I had to go back and hand stitch it closed...oh well, no one can see it:)

 

My little bit of drama turned into a pretty mifty solution. If you're interested in making one of these yourself, I'm sure there's a tutorial or a pattern out there somewhere...but like in my cooking, I just don't like to follow a recipe:)

 

THANKS, THANKS, THANKS to Rachel at Stitched in Color and Julie at The Intrepid Thread! We've finally gotten Junie B. and Dora to surrender and peace reigns again:)