Charming my KitchenAid with a Cozy

Project Quilting 2015 wraps up this week with Challenge # Six:


This cute little button arrived with the package I won in Challenge Five, a cute charm pack kit from Village Creek!

My Charm Square finish is a quilted cozy for my KitchenAid mixer. It stands 17" high x 15" deep and 11" wide. Here is the side view.

Can you see the little Tupperware bowls?

The 'front' view:

(Yes, my kitchen counters are pink)

 

After looking a bit online, I determined to just make a big rectangular quilt, then worry about shaping it later. I measured my mixer, then pieced two panels approx. 19.5" x 21". These were joined to make one rectangle, 21" x 38" before making the sandwich.
For the patchwork, I began by breaking into a short stack pack (25pcs) of Just My Type, then I snagged a lot of Road 15 from another stash-pack, as well as some additional faves here and there. Initially, I pieced wonky rows that came out 4" to 4.5" wide. I ended up cutting those in half lengthwise though - scrappier is just better...
My project is intended for my own kitchen and I was drawn to some vintage ticking. I cut 5" squares, thinking this fabric would alternate between the scrappiness, however they didn't fit the image and I ended up piecing the stripes, wrong side out, near the bottom of each row to help separate my pieced 'border'. Bit odd, but I love it!
Here are those cute Tupperwares on the other side. This fabric was from Mary Engelbreit..

I kept the quilting fairly wonky too.

Final construction was much easier than anticipated. Online, the cozies I found had front panels, piping and all other frivolities. As it turned out, I like the looks of the simpler approach and just finished it like the bottom of a shopping bag. Since I had not planned for this method, I feared my panel may not be large enough so I blocked / preshrank it before making final assembly. Once dry, it measured 19.5 x 36". Whew, barely big enough! Only 15 minutes to sew the ends together, box the corners and zigzag those inside seams. Fits like a glove and no need to line it since I used this pretty fabric from my stash ;-)

Had I made the panel a bit bigger, I would have probably rolled a fat hem at the bottom, but the length came out perfectly so I added a machine-binding.

Project Quilting Challenge is a hoot, and I look forward to participating again next year! I want to shout out, "Thank You" to Kim Lapacek, and her helpers, for hosting! Voting for this last challenge starts today at her site, Persimmon Dreams.

For my quilty-blogger-friends, and fellow 'competitors' (haha), thank you for reading! It has been awhile since I last shared, so I have a GIVEAWAY today! A charm pack of 25, 5" squares from the 'What's my Type" line. To enter, please comment this week, by March 29th at midnight, PST. If a topic helps, let me know what you made the last time you used your mixer, or whether you had to wash the mixer before you used it! I love to use mine for kneading pizza dough, and for cinnamon rolls - YUM!


THANK YOU!