Quilted Playmat

In the recent issue of Living Crafts magazine, they have patterns for five new knitted farmyards. Knitted farmyards, I thought? A knitted farmyard, I discovered, is a playmat that is made by creating and piecing squares of a variety of styles to create one whole "farm." Each square is a different part of the farm, like a sheep pasture, or vegetable garden, wheat field, or pond. Back in Living Crafts inagural issue of Winter 2008, they had this article about collaborating with a group to create knitted farmyard playmats.


Because I have no green yarn in my stash, which would be necessary for fields, I decided instead to make a quilted farmyard. Using different prints for the various fields, I'm sewing the patches together to make a Cotswold sheep farm. The fields are bordered by golden stone fences, typical of Cotswold limestone. My plan is to embroider the fields with flowers, crops, and vegetables, and somehow embroider the stone walls to look like stones. Then, when I put in the batting and backing, I'm going to quilt crop rows and waves of water onto the fields and ponds, respectively. Some knitted or wooden animals and simple wooden farm equipment which I hope to purchase should complete Baby's first Christmas present in a little under a year from now!