Whimsicöl Mist Car Sunshade Tutorial
September 09, 2013
Today's tutorial is brought to you by our love of the little ones!
The star of the project itself has to be the fabric. We specifically wanted to use designs from the recently released Nördika collection because of it's playful and frolicky prints. We felt these are fitting qualities for the infants and toddlers that will benefit from the sunshade, don't you?
The tutorial itself is very easy to follow and novices can jump in and practice both their sewing and quilting! Let's begin with a diagram of the fabrics and supplies you'll need:
(All fabrics from Nördika fabric collection)
- (1) 9” square of Whimsicol Mist Panel
- (1) 9” square of Stellar Skylight
- (4) 3¼” square of Wildflowers Lagoon
- (4) 3¼” square of Fresh Water
- (1) ) 3¼” square of Sweetish Turquoise
- (4) 14½” x 1” strip of Wild Flowers Lagoon
- (1) 14½” square of Whimsicol Mist Panel
- (1) 14½” square of Batting
- (4) 1” suction cups with attached hooks
- 12” of thin elastic band
The first step is to place the right sides of squares 1 and 2 and pin them together on each side. Using a rotary cutter and ruler, cut diagonally from corner to corner in both directions as shown below. You should end up with 8 triangles (4 with each fabric).
Now onto making the 4 half squares. Take a triangle of each fabric and sew them together to create your squares. Since the triangles were cut on bias they might stretch a little bit. If this happens, you can trim them if needed.
When you’ve sewn your 4 squares, take the other pieces and following the diagram order, start attaching them together (don’t forget to press open every time you attach a piece to another).
Attach the strips around the sides and voilà! You're done with your block.
Take the batting piece and place it on the wrong side of the block. Now, sew it as close as possible to the edge, just enough so that it will stay put.
Next, take the elastic and cut four 3” strips. Pin them on each corner of piece 6 (tails should be sticking out).
Now take the block and lay it face down on top of piece 6. Sew along the edge and reinforce your corners to keep the elastic inside, leaving and opening of at least 2”.
From this opening, flip it right side out, press it and sew ¼” around the edge to close the opening and give it a neat professional finish.
We also quilted our sunshade with running parallel lines every 2”.
And what's a quilting tutorial without a quilt!? So here you have a full quilt option with this design, minus the contrasting border around the blocks.
If you have any questions or remarks, kindly leave them in the comments for us. Also, we'd love to hear any suggestions for tutorials you'd like to see made. And should you decide on making this cute little sunshade (and we hope you do!), please share it with us through instagram or twitter.
Thanks for reading and keep stitching!