Carissa's Car Quilt--September

I mailed out fabric for the September quilt today (except for Betty's--I'm hoping to finish your treehouse block in the next day or two and mail them together)! I have been looking forward to this quilt ever since Common Threads started. I've picked up a habit of going out to my car (a silver Honda Element) on my lunch break for a quick nap. Or just a quiet place to stretch out and read a book. Is that strange? It's quiet, private (more or less), offers protection from weather (hot sun, chilly winds). Well, regardless of whether or not it's strange, I probably won't stop doing it until the Wisconsin winter prevents me from going out. In the meantime, I'd really love to have a special quilt to keep in my car. This quilt will keep me cozy in chilly weather, and will be a great quilt to spread out on the ground if I decide to hang out on the grass on warmer days. Although it will be kept in my car, you are under no obligation to depict a car or any other form of transportation in your quilt block. I fear that too many appliqued cars may make it look like it's meant for a very hip baby boy. However, I am very fond of this (rather subtle) quilt block by two straight lines:


And I like the wheel-like umbrella stripe thing in this quilt:


The interior of my vehicle is grey and blue, so I've decided to make the body of this quilt dark grey (which is very exciting for me since I can't do dark colors on a quilt I'd keep in the house--I have two mostly white kitties). The final layout of the quilt will look something like this:

This layout was inspired by a few denyse schmidt designs and this awesome quilt by glittergoods:

And I'm considering sewing up a cute matching totebag for it like this one from crazy mom quilts (matching in concept--a totebag for a quilt--but with a design that matches the quilt):


So, with all of that introduction, here's the nitty-gritty instructions--
1. Your finished block should be no larger than 12" and no smaller than 6".
2. It doesn't have to be square (i.e. it can be somewhat rectangular and/or wonky)
3. If you are an overachiever and would like to make more than one block (you should have plenty of fabric--especially if you make a smaller block) you are welcome to do so, but you are under no obligation! Extra blocks that don't fit on the front of the quilt may make an appearance on the back, or on the matching tote bag.
4. Feel free to pull in fabrics from your own stash. This fabric below is the inspiration for the whole quilt, so as long as your scraps sort of coordinate with this, that's fine.


5. When you're done, if you have scraps leftover from the fabric that I sent that you DON'T WANT, I'd love to have them back! However, if you love the fabrics and would like to keep the scraps, that's fine. I'd just be sad if big pieces of it went into the trash.

*a note about the envelopes--in light of some peoples' experiences with mangled mail, i decided to try a sturdier package. i found a big package of these UPS envelopes at Goodwill for cheap, so I altered them a bit to fit our needs better. If you follow the scanned instructions on the back, you should be able to use the same envelope to send it back to me if you want. If you fold your quilt block flatter (to give the envelope more uniform thickness) they might even let you send it for "letter rate" instead of "package rate."

any questions? what did I forget?