My husband can go no further than this Title. Thanks and love ya!

Just thought I'd start this post with a put him off the track picture...are you looking Mr. Because I Can?  I hope not...by the way this is a little creation of mine using 3 excellent recipes from excellent human beings to make pie nirvana.  This is my version of Chocolate Pudding Pie.  I used The Pioneer Woman's Pie Crust  tutorial for the crust.  Martha Stewart's Chocolate Ganache Recipe from her most recent magazine for a layer of oh so much goodness over the crust and then Smitten Kitchen's homemade chocolate pudding for the pudding layer.  Top it with homemade whipped cream and some chocolate shavings and you've got pure heavenly goodness.  I'd like to brag that this and the pumpkin pie were the only two completely devoured in 2 days time...we had a lot of pies that day.  Make this.  I used Callebaut dark chocolate as my chocolate involved in the ganache and pudding and it was rich and awesome!  I also weighed my ingredients when necessary.  Because...I'm like that.  Get a scale.

Sometimes I'm ambitious...maybe a little too ambitious some might say.  But, look I figure if I want to make a pillow case with a picture of a Volkswagen Camper Bus on it, circa 1970's...then by golly I should be able to do it!  Commence the very difficult project...

I had to scour the Internet for pictures of a VW Bus...because I'm not schooled in this lovely mode of transportation.  We only had 3 kids, we got to pile 3 deep in the back of the Lincoln Continental...seat belts optional. 

There are lots of pictures and of course I figure I can make my own paper-pieced block from my own brain cells.  I've done plenty of paper piecing.  I'm smart enough...good enough...etc etc etc...well...I am...sort of.

This started out much more complex.  I figured I could do a slightly off center full-body view of a VW Bus...HAHAHA.  No.  You can't!  Don't try it! 

Look, you have to be able to keep everything perfectly centered and so you can't just put a piece wherever you want and hope it'll match up correctly.  There are seams involved! 

Just a fun little fact...the windows on this VW Bus are from one of my husband's shirts.  He thinks I'm a loon because I like to keep fabric from shirts of maybe torn sheets or wherever and save them for future projects.  I like to think I'm frugal...he thinks I'm crazy!

Really I had to think and rethink how I was going to pull this off at several points during construction.

Because I'd get to sewing what I was sure would work....and then come to realize that I just made it have weird wings at the top...rethink time.

One of the trickiest things about paper piecing is sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith and hope you are positioning your fabric correctly...because you are going to fold it over to the right side and sometimes angles are not so friendly!

I confess, I wasted more than my share of fabric on this project...but I was in a bit of a hurry and didn't know exactly what I was doing...I felt a little overlap was what i need to make sure everything ended up the way I wanted it.

Then I got to this point and realized I had to figure out a way to get the wheels on...hmmmm...won't exactly work with paper piecing, so luckily I had an epiphany and made 3ish separate pieces to be sewn together at the end!  AHA!

Oh yeah, I got me some wheels.  Of course things didn't exactly work out with these wheels the first time as I miscalculated some other pieces that cut one of them off completely...right then....figure it out again. 

My seam ripper and I were besties again for this project.  So...the wheels are a little wonky.  But, by this time...the pile of wasted fabric and unpicked thread had piled up and I was a little crazed...so I figured wonky was the way I wanted it from the start...right?  Right.

Add the extra bits to be later finger-turn appliqued into place...and I was starting to feel really good about things.  The wings were gone...there were wheels, a bumper, the W on the front...HURRAY!!!

Finished product and DAMN if I don't love it!  I put a piece of paper over the personalized license plate...I know, I know, nobody reads this blog...but just in case.  So you can embroider whatever you want on the licence plate to personalize it.  I love the Denyse Schmidt fabric I used to complete the pillow case.  What turned out to be an impulse buy I once regretted has now made me so happy!  I have made 3 things now using it and I love them all!

Here's the back.  I always like looking at the backs of blocks.  It's just fun.  Yeah...there are paper scraps still attached.  I was exhausted by this time.  And picking off every last piece of paper was not happening.

All done and it's love!  This might not be the side my loving husband ever sleeps on, as it's not exactly smooth, but that's okay.  I love it too much and am pretty sure he will too!

Thanks for sticking with me through the play by play. 

Heather