Camping Mini Quilt

My parents do a lot of camping and have a camper van thing which attaches to the back of their truck, a cross between a tent, a campervan and a caravan.

I thought it would be nice for her to have something 'soft' and crafty to take with her.  Something to have other than pots and pans and camping supplies.  She's a bit of a crafter herself and a lot of women that go on the trips with them (her included) take craft with them to do around the camp fire.

So I decided to make her a mini-quilt wall hanging that she can either hang for a tent pole when they set up camp, or perhaps put a hook on the inside of the truck window and hang it there permanently.

The little campfires in the corner are machine embroidered and the writing is hand embroidered using backstitch and varigated thread.  Unfortunately I chose the thread for the back label badly as most of it is very pale.  Does make it a bit more subtle though.

The dowel on the back was bought in a packet from Spotlight but I still had to cut it down to size.  The top and side edges of the pockets were sewn into the binding.  I then inserted the dowel (with the hanging corod attached) and hand stitched the bottom edge of the pocket down.

I made the twisted cord myself using crochet cotton, which gave me the opportunity to untwist the looped end and slide the dowel through.  The other end is untwisted a little as well to make a look for the dowel.  The tension in the twist naturally pulls itself tight again around the dowel.  I just tied a note and frayed the end for effect.  I quite like the asymetrical look of the back.

I used thick wadding, but it's turned out a bit to puffy for my liking.  I should have just used thin wadding.  But now I know for next time.  I hope Mum likes it.  Her birthday was last month, but she arrives for Christmas on Thursday so we agreed that I wouldn't post it, I'd just save it for when she arrived.