Pillows

You’ll have to forgive me if I end up being short on words here… I sometimes find it tricky to say much about a project if I’m blogging about it a while after I’ve completed it.

Why the delay?  I whipped up these pillows in November, prior to a sale put on by members of The Ann Arbor Modern Quilt Guild.  The plan was always to make them into gifts if they didn’t sell and at least one of the recipients reads my blog, so I couldn’t blog about them.

Anyway, now that the season of gift-giving has passed, I can share these three little quilt pillows.

(1) This one was made using a mini-charm pack of 2wenty thr3e that I picked up at market, the yellow is Kona Curry (one of my all time favorite colors…I own a bolt of this stuff!)

There’s no pattern here, I just arranged the squares on my design wall and then pieced columns of fabric neutrals and blenders from a variety of fabric lines.  I quilted it with straight lines, alternating threads with each column of patchwork.  The threads are Sulky’s Goldenrod (it’s a really good match for the Kona Curry) and Aurafil’s White (which I also used for piecing).

(2) This one was made with Pimatex in Steel (which is the other bolt of fabric that I own!)  I had fun with quilting a whole cloth quilt here and the threads are different colors–Sulky’s Goldenrod again and one of their variegated teals as well.

(3) Finally, this pillow was made using the leftovers of that charm pack of Lotta Jansdotter’s Glimma line (the ones to the right of the ruler).  If you’re new here, you can see the rest of the fabric in a log cabin quilt in this older post.  This line of fabric is coming out soon, and I can’t wait to have more of it to play with!

Mixed in are some other fabrics from my stash.  This patchwork is done using the “exquisite” process that Gwen Marston spells out in Liberated Quiltmaking.

Each pillow’s insert is a king-size pillow that I purchased from TJMaxx (or maybe Home Goods) where they cost about $25/pair.

I think pillows are a great way to do small experiments with quilting and patchwork.  At the end of it, you’ve got a useful and pretty object that can be used in your home or given as a gift!

**Full disclosure: I have been working to develop relationships with the manufacturers of products that I love.  I am now happily affiliated with my two favorite thread manufacturers–Aurifil and Sulky. They don’t control what I do or say, but I do get free thread from them on occasion! I should probably write a separate post about why I love these threads (or would that be boring?)  Also, the Amazon link is an affiliate link.