Throw Back Thursday

Just found this linky party on Quiltin' Jenny's website for projects completed before you were blogging. What a great idea. I have heaps of projects to share since I have only been blogging about my craft this year. I will have to scan in the photos of my earliest projects as they were taken before I had a digital camera. But there are lots of quilts I have made in the last few years too.



For my first throwback I am not going to go far into my past. In fact only back to November last year. 

My middle son, who I have referred to previously as C, DS2 or Kombi boy turned 21 in November. He has long loved Kombi vans and last year (much to my horror I must admit) he got an enormous tattoo of a Kombi van on his chest. Most tattoos I find to be rather ugly but this one... well... a giant Kombi with a sunset behind it... its so happy. I still don't like tattoos but as far as they go this one is kinda pretty and a lot cuter than most of the tatoos out there

I mean - considering that heavy metal is his preferred music genre it could have been a whole heap worse!!

SO ... he loves Kombis. His dad, Fixit Guy, made him a Kombi van shaped clock for his 21st. He has been given various Kombi adorned objects over the year as well... sox, key ring, ornaments, magnets etc. I made him a Kombi van quilt. I was only going to make him a wall hanging based on a pattern by Cindy Cooksey called "Another Day in Paradise"

However Fixit Guy doesn't like wall hangings (he thinks they are useless) He prefers quilts so I thought, ok I'll make him a lap sized quilt. He can use it on the couch but again Fixit Guy objected and said it should fit the queen bed. Man. That guy has no idea how much work (and expense) is involved in a quilt that size. However I figured if he wanted it I could make it and he could pay for it :) I wasn't going to applique that many blocks. I did make 11 of the vans as per the pattern. Fixit Guy drafted me two more patterns for the front end and back end views of the Kombi. I drafted out a peace sign and the VW logo as well and appliqued them onto back ground fabric. I made 10 pinwheel blocks to intersperse the appliqued blocks.

I used a really bright sixties themed floral for the inner border as well as some gorgeous and inexpensive kombi patterned fabric for the outer border. I had originally bought it for the backing but when the quilt kept growing I had to use some on the front as well and then had to piece the backing (didn't get a photo of it). I made a special label for the quilt appliquing on some of the flowers and kombis from the two border fabric but since it details his full name and date of birth might be discrete and not put it on the blogosphere. 

 I was really happy with how it turned out and Kombi Boy seemed very pleased with it as well. Because it was a secret project I wasn't photographing it as much since I wasn't sharing on facebook so didn't end up with many close up shots of individual blocks and even the completed project had few photos of it. However I do have some. The quilt was quilted by my friend Kym Colgrave from Professional Quilting Service who did a fabulous custom job on it. It helped that she and her partner are mad Kombi enthusiasts 

I forgot to get a photo of the quilt at home before we left to visit Kombi Boy for his birthday so tried getting a photo by standing on a chair and holding camera way above my head hence NONE of the 5 or 6 shots I took were straight. This is as good as I got!!

Back end of the van. Pattern drafted by Fixit Guy. The number plate is my son's initials and year of birth

Front of the kombi as drafted by Fixit guy. I was going to put people in the van but... I don't do people without a good pattern

Kombi Boy and I with his quilt

A close up of some of the blocks including the logo which I drafted from a picture on the net. You get a taste of Kym's fabulous quilting. See the peace sign on the van on right. Exquisite

Funny side note. We were sitting in his loungre room in February. His sister had just given him a small pile of late Christmas presents. (They had been posted back from the UK and had only just arrived) These included a number of Kombi themed things including socks and key tag. We'd just taken the photo of him and me with his quilt and had been talking about his clock. Fangirl asked him if he was getting sick of Kombi themed stuff and he said "Yeah kinda" and we looked at each other and then we said "Tough - you're stuck with it" Given his chest art work he is going to have it around him for the rest of his life.