My Very Own Mr Men Quilt

After bugging mum to death it turned out I was most definitely NOT going to be able to steal her Mr Men quilt which would look lovely inside my tent.

So I gave up bugging and set out to make my own. Last week in Bude I picked up some fabric to go with the Mr Men quilt cover I already had.

My plan was to rip the quilt cover in half and save one side to turn back into a quilt cover backed on plain fabric and use the Mr Men from the other side to make the blanket like quilt. 

Here's the quilt cover all finished...

...complete with button holes and everything ;-)

Next came the quilt/blanket and the Mr Men got sliced and diced into 16cm x 16cm squares.

Now I just had to do the patterned fabric, only 182 squares to go.

After cutting them out after work for about three days I took over the living room to lay them out in my final design (after much deliberation, a few phone calls and emails for opinions - sad I know!)

Next came stitching them all together. I took the first two from each column and stitched them right side together, one after the other in a strip.

I just carried on this way until I had all of the horizontal squares sewn together in lines - well after I changed my first mistake of stitching Mr Clumsy the wrong side up...

but I undid it and put it right! - naughty Mr Clumsy....

and my second mistake came when somehow Mr Daydream moved over a square to the left from the original pattern...

...but I carried on anyway and soon had all the squares together.

Next came the quilting part - if I could just get the batting sewn together to the right width!!!!!

Eventually I got it through the machine and then layered it like a sandwich with fabric on both sides. 

Now just the easy part of quilting it - yer right!!!!!

After every single swear word was used, two needles were broken, a spool of cotton was wasted as it kept puckering, the sewing machine sliding across the table every two minutes and the living room looking like a cotton wool and pin factory I finally got every square outlined.

All I had to do was trim the sides and add the edging and it was finished. 

Ta da!! 

A bit higgledy piggledy but it was my first go at something so big and I'm sure it will keep me warm.

Now to try it out camping in two weeks time :-)