This pillow came as a special request from my mom who said she could use a pillow for her living room chair. I had her look through the Pillow Talk book by Edyta Sitar which I had been wanting to make something out of but hadn’t yet, and she picked out the Lone Star pillow.
It was my first time making an 8-pointed star and it wasn’t a simple one. 🙂 It was interestingly pieced together from wedges cut from a strip set. These wedges were then combined using y-seams. Luckily I had recently learned how to sew y-seams, so it was a little less intimidating, however, that didn’t mean it was easy! I had to rip it apart multiple times before I got it right. Even then, I had some ill-fitting fabric in the corners that I was just hoping I could add some quilting to disguise.
I put this pillow cover on my longarm with a few other small projects I’ve been working on. I started by analyzing what part of the star I wanted to emphasize and did dense quilting in the rest to push it down. I played around with a couple different designs to add variety. For the border, I tried out to a rectangular pattern to keep it simple and clean, yet give it some texture. I really had fun with the quilting on this one!
After winning the February pattern for the Front Porch Quilt Shop Stash Buster contest last month (check out my previous post here), I got to work on the project in hopes of entering the next contest. With only two participants last month and my free pattern there was nothing to lose! The Feathered Friends – Spring pattern features that cute bird again, but this time sitting on a flower in a basket. I chose summery bright colors this time around.
One of the goals of the contest is to show creativity, so instead of making a wall hanging per the original pattern, I decided to turn it into a pillow. But, my couch needs a pair of pillows… and I didn’t want to make the same exact scene for each! Coincedently that week I had also received Anka’s Treasures Wildflower Sampler pattern which included a flower very similar to the flowers in the bird’s basket. I made two of the flowers for the second pillow and it rounded out my pair of pillows nicely!
I’ve made pillow covers before, but I wanted to try some new techniques this time. I had come across the idea to quilt the pillows, which strangely I had never thought of doing before! Adding the batting and quilting really makes a more firm cover and it turned out great. I also added yellow binding around the pillows courtesy of a technique I saw in the Pillow Talk book by Edyta Sitar. Having never bound my pillows before, I found I really love the look. All my future pillow covers will be quilted and bound!
I had fun trying out new quilting designs! I tried to go for a whimsical look on the background and petal designs.
The results of the February contest are in and I won first place! Besides winning some credit to spend at the quilt shop, I will be getting next month’s pattern for free. Expect to see Feathered Friends – Summer soon. 🙂
I’ve been busy sewing all things Spring lately — and in particular tulips! While working on a bright, happy tulip table runner called “Easter Tulips” by Cluck Cluck Sew, I got the idea to make extra tulips for pillow covers for my couch. These were so fast and easy to make that I finished them before the table runner!
The Easter Tulips pattern can be found in the Modern Holiday Table Runners pattern booklet. I followed the pattern for the tulip blocks, added a spacer between them and did the math to figure out the size of the white borders needed to create the 21-inch-square pillow covers. I made an envelope back to slip over my pillow forms. The tulip blocks went together quickly and I can’t wait to make more of the seasonal table runners in the booklet! I might have to convert more of them to matching pillow covers, too!
Walking into my living room is so bright and cheery now! What a fun project to use my fabric scraps.
Just a day before Valentines’ Day and I’ve finished a lovely set of decor! These projects were inspired from the 2021 Cupid Box from Fat Quarter Shop.
The annual Cupid Box from Fat Quarter Shop is a mystery box filled with fabric, a pattern, and exclusive accessories/notions for the holiday. This was my first time getting this box and I was pleasantly surprised! It included a bunch of heart goodies like: clips, a handy tape measure, key ring charm, and ruler grips. The featured fabric was a stack of fat quarters from the “From the Heart” line by Sandy Gervais and an exclusive panel with large images of typewriters, love letters, and phones. There was an exclusive pattern to make a quilt from this fabric, but I went my own way and created some Valentine decor for my house.
Pillow Covers
Pillows I started off making two pillows featuring the large typewriters from the panel. I pieced together squares from the fat quarters to make an outside border. This turned out to be much more difficult than expected because of all the math involved! The typewriter image wasn’t exactly square, so even when I figured out the measurement the border needed to be for two of the sides, I couldn’t copy it for the other two sides and had to adjust the size of my white spacer squares to cover the difference accordingly. It all turned out decently, but by this point I was already regretting branching out and wishing I had a pattern to follow!
Table Runner
Table Runner Next up was a table runner. I was determined to use up as many images from the panel as possible! I really liked the heart blocks that were included in the quilt pattern, so I made those as designed, but added white borders around them to make them the same size as the love letter and phone images from the panel. I thought surely this would help me put the pieces together easier! Unfortunately, I found that while those blocks lined up nicely with each other, they didn’t line up perfectly with the typewriter (which still wasn’t square!). After trying out a few layouts I decided to add a red border around some of the edges to make the two sides the same height as the typewriter. The design definitely changed from my original vision, but I’m happy with how it turned out.
Wall Hanging
Wall Hanging At this point I was ready to be done with these projects, but I still had more panel pieces to use up! 🙂 I had also premade a bunch of hearts when I made the table runner (smart move), so I had some blocks ready to work with. I decided to keep it as simple as I could and cut up strips of the remaining fat quarters to use as sashing around the blocks. I didn’t have enough pieces of each fabric to make solid strips, but I actually like the scrappiness of it!
All in all, I’m very happy with this set of projects! However, I learned that I don’t dream of becoming a pattern designer and instead can’t wait to follow someone else’s math next time!
Finished Size: 20" x 20" for Pillow Covers, 42" x 14.5" for Table Runner, 22.5" x 22.5" for Wall Hanging
Fabric: From the Heart by Sandy Gervais for Riley Blake Designs
Sew Happy by Sarah 