Blue Trees and Purple Bushes

A few weekends ago, I went to the market for some cheese and milk and came back with a bunch of fabric. I may have gotten lost and gone to the wrong market. But this one was much more fun and colourful, like my own personal wonderland! By ‘this one’, I mean the Frank Kitts Underground Market, which has been going in full swing on both Saturdays and Sundays during the Rugby World Cup. It’s been great for the stallholders, but bad for my bank account, because it makes it too easy for me to roll up and get my fix for the week.

And by ‘fix’, I mean fix of pretty.  And cute.  And gorgeous.  And life-force giving.

I found this fabric at Stichbird's stall, and I had to have it.  Well, I had to have it so I could make a present for my friend who is due to bring a human into this world in a few weeks.  I felt this new human would need some pretty so she could get her fix too.  It's something you learn early on.

And here’s what I did with it. One fabric, two ways, lots of colour and fun and pretty for one’s fix.

A baby-changing mat!  That's not exactly a square!  More of a wonky parallelogram really!  Oh well, little baby girl Evans will learn the finer points of geometry at a tender young age then - I'm contributing to her early genius.  She will also learn that trees are blue and bushes are purple, and will be sorely disappointed when the real world doesn't live up to this rainbow pallette.  She'll learn to accept disappointment at a tender young age too then.

You wouldn't know that I have never made one of these before, would you? (Heh heh.)  Yep this design came totally out of my own brain.  Much as all of my one-off hair-brained crafty ideas do.

And look, isn't that clever, it rolls up!  *Pats self on back*  I'm so clever.  :)

Here's basically what I did:

1. Sandwiched some quilty/batting-type stuff that I failed to take a picture of between this jungle fabric and the complementary (I hope) blue leafy fabric.
2. Measured out enough ropey stuff to go around the outside, then turned it into piping by some more of the blue leafy fabric around the length of the rope.  [Really should have taken photos!]  Sewed that piping to the inside quilty/batting stuff, then folded over the outside fabrics and sewed them so that the blue piping was showing around the edge.
3. Made a strap out of an extra piece of blue fabric and quilted down the length of it.  Attached velcro to the ends of it so the mat can be rolled up and velcroed into a tube for easy transport.  Or so my brain thinks.
4. Quilted around the edges of the animals to keep all three layers in place and show off my less-than-stellar skillz with the sewing machine. 

With the rest of the fabric I created some wall art.  You can never have enough wall art!

Just frame some scenes in cheapo wooden embroidery hoops, paint them if you like, then decorate to your heart's content.  

I decorated them with some ribbony bows to conceal the screws, and then staple-gunned the smaller ones to the bottom of the larger ones. 

Look at that giraffe, he's so happy to be living in a land of candy-coloured plant life.  You're living the dream, my friend, living the dream.  Just watch out for the lion that smells like chocolate, I'm pretty sure that's a trap.