The story of the Patchwork Car

The patchwork car cover that stopped everyone in their tracks last weekend at the outdoor quilt show, was kindly loaned by Toni Waygood.  Everyone slowly walked around the car, noting that both sides of the cover were different, and cameras were clicking merrily away. It was certainly a sight to behold. There must be a story behind this, I thought, and made some enquiries.  It all started when one  of the ladies in Toni’s Monday stitching group saw a picture from overseas of a car cover.  Let’s make one too, they gaily decided.  (Wonder if they knew what they were letting themselves in for?)  The first step was to make pattern pieces using old sheets.  The shapes of each section were measured and cut out of the sheets.  Everyone pooled their orphan blocks and UFOs.  These were sorted into colour groups.  There was no particular theme chosen for the cover.  It was a matter of using what was on hand, and the cover evolved and took on a life of it’s own!

As the blocks for each part were joined together, Toni would then quilt that part on her Swiftquilter.  With  each new part attached, the cover became more and more heavy and cumbersome.  Allowance was made for the windows  There were many fittings with the edges being tacked and then sewn to conform to the final shape.  The cover  took six weeks from start to finish, and Toni’s husband was very supportive as this huge job seemed to take over all her spare time.  Toni commented that without the help of her “Monday Girls”, she would never had made the quilt a reality.  Many thanks to Toni, who not only loaned the cover for the show, but also for telling me how it all came about.