Tag Archives: quilted pillow

Odds and Ends

The weekend is just about here. Julia is going to her first high school football game tonight and we are not a football family. It is rare that you’ll hear any talk of sports in our house. But I am fairly certain that 14 year olds don’t go to football games for the sport – it’s all about the friends. She will have a great time and I will wonder how she got to be this age so quickly.

It was a busy week here in Grass Valley, CA (doesn’t that sound just like Garrison Keillor? I love him.) I decided I was tired of looking through filthy windows so I hired a couple of window cleaners to come and clean them. We have lots of windows (40 to be exact, I paid per window so I now know this number.) Turns out that having windows cleaned involves lots of prep on the part of the window owner. They asked me to clear any items near the windows so they could have access. Yikes. My sewing table, ironing station and cutting station are under a window. I am sure you can imagine. But after I got the house put back together, it was well worth it. Shiny clean windows. Just in time for fall colors… the maple trees near these windows turn a great shade of yellow-gold and now we will enjoy the changes that much more. (Well, that’s if fall ever comes, it is a balmy 98 degrees outside today.

Time in the sewing room was not plentiful this week. I did finish up one quick project though. Remember the block-hop that I posted about last week? When I was playing with the design for that block, I did a mock up first. I used some holiday fabric that I had (mainly because it was right next to the cutting area and saved me the long walk to the closet across the room where my stash is stored.) The block was pretty though and I wanted to use it for something.

I added two borders, one 2″ wide and the other is 3″ wide. With these borders I ended up with a pillow cover that is about 21″ square.

I used an envelope backing and stitched a seam 1″ in from the perimeter to make a flange. Straight line quilting with a fairly narrow gauge was done on an angle, dividing the pillow into four quadrants.

I used a Mettler variegated thread with shades of gold, silver and cream which I love with these fabrics.

When I quilt a pillow, I sandwich the quilted portion with plain muslin and pieced batting scraps. The quilting looks kinda cool on the muslin side.

It makes me want to try some sort of whole cloth project to really emphasize the quilting. Another addition to the list….

It will be fun to pull this out in a few months when the time comes to decorate for the holidays. Hoping everyone has a great weekend. Seems like it is hot across the country right now. Maybe this is the last blast of heat before wonderful autumn starts.

Linking to Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict as well as Freemotion Mavericks (even tho this is quilted with a walking foot, not my darning foot.) All links to these link parties are available at the top of the page, under Link Ups.

Loving Spring

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Hi Everyone. Hope that your week was good – the weekend is nearly here! We had a bit of a crazy week here. It started with a storm which was welcomed by all. Easter was rainy and cold. Then on Tuesday we actually got snow. Such extreme changes; we went from 75 degree afternoons to snow! It was a treat though as we haven’t had any snow this year. It melted off by the next morning and we are already back in the 60’s. Just a crazy spring storm.

We are still dealing with a horrible drought though and because of this, my husband and I decided to forgo our usual vegetable garden this year. It doesn’t make sense to use so much water in that way. I will also skip planting annuals and will not be planting any summer flowers in my deck pots. We are really in conservation mode here. We have three acres and much of it is grass so come summer, we will let some of it die back. Normally we irrigate a great deal of it but this year we will have some brown patches. It will grow back the following year. Hoping next year brings a monsoon our way.

Our garden is definitely pushing blossoms everywhere. The clematis is gorgeous.

Roses are blooming.

Artichokes will be picked soon.

Peaches are already the size of small almonds. I do love spring!

I worked on a few fun projects this week. I finished the vintage linen pillow that I was hand quilting last week. It is so cute. My stitches certainly leave room for improvement but I loved doing the hand work. I will definitely continue to practice. I used Aurifil because I really wasn’t entirely sure what I should be using and I didn’t want it to stand out too much since it was my first attempt at hand quilting. Next go around, I will try something with more heft; maybe a Perle cotton? Suggestions welcome here!

It is certainly harder than it looks! Tricky to quilt tiny stitches of a consistent length. Overall, I am pleased with my first attempt and it will be a good reminder of where I began.

The pair of pillows work well together.

I also made one of the tablerunners this on my ALOYF goal for this month. I used two Joel Dewberry prints that I won a while back. It is a basic chevron with a tiny pop of turquoise bordering it. I am quilting it with straight lines on the chevron and pebbling on the white triangles. Hopefully I can get that finished and bound this weekend. (This picture was taken inside, in the evening, which never makes for a great shot.)

That’s it for this week! I know I skipped writing a gratitude post this week, but if I were to choose something I am especially grateful for, it would be the storm we had. It may not have fixed our situation, but it sure didn’t hurt!

By the way, if you are an Instagram fan, have you been enjoying the “twenty things about me” posts that are going through the quilting population? I love them. I have read so many fun things about some of the quilters I admire. It has been fun to follow these posts! Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend.

Linking to my usual: Let’s Bee Social, Crazy Mom Quilts, and Confessions of a Fabric Addict. Also linking to TGIFF which is hosted by Lorna this week (at Sew Fresh Quilts.) All of these links are located at the top of the page, under Link Ups.

A Vintage Pillow Finish

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Last week I decided to cut into my collection of vintage sheets and play with them. I made two pillow tops. One of which I took up to Downieville last weekend to practice hand quilting. This was my first attempt at hand stitching. I didn’t get that one quite finished but it is looking pretty good so far. I did finish another one though. I plan to use them on the guest bed, which unfortunately is located in my sewing room and often cannot be found underneath all of the projects that lie on top of it. Ha ha.

I used Corey Yoder’s Scattered Squares pattern which was published on the Mode Bakeshop website last summer. Corey designed the pattern to be made with a mini charm pack. I decided to adjust it a bit and use 3 & 1/2″ squares since I was cutting my squares anyway. Simple straight line quilting was used with a spacing of about 3/4″ or so. I didn’t measure or mark this, rather I used the edge of the walking foot as my guide.

I used a sheet to make an envelope backing. If you need a tutorial for this, there is a great one over at Crazy Mom Quilts. Super simple and takes no time at all.

This afternoon I decided to play with the Tula PInk City Sampler book that I wrote about in my last post. This is going to be a fun project. I made three blocks today and they came together easily. These are all from a section of the book that features various cross block patterns. I am liking the look of this already! Each block finishes at 6 1/2″. Three down and who knows how many to finish it.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

UPDATE: I forgot to include my April goal for ALYOF!! Yikes – I plan to make three gifts this month. I think each will be a tablerunner, though one may be a mini quilt wall hanging. Finishing these three gifts are my goal for April. Phew!!

Linking to Crazy Mom Quilts (yay – she is back after her month away from the blog!) and also Sew Bittersweet Designs for ALOYF!!

Such a fun weekend and a giveaway!

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First of all, you might remember that a couple of weeks ago I went to see my son in the Central Valley. He is all set up in a nice apartment and I left feeling like I wanted to make something for him. He recently bought some furniture and I thought a new pillow for the couch would be a good project. I used scraps that I had and a pillow form that was sitting there waiting to be used. After piecing the strips, I did some quick straight line quilting that is maybe 1/2″ apart. I didn’t mark anything, just eyeballed it. The back is an envelope style backing. It came together so quickly and I bet I have enough fabric left to make another for him.

Last post I mentioned that I was leaving for our annual sisters’ weekend. As always we had such a great time. We don’t see each other often enough, especially considering I don’t live all that far away from three of my sisters. Life just gets in the way. Anyway, the weekend was mostly comprised of visiting, eating, visiting and then eating again. (Really, what more do we need??) One of my sisters lives in Colorado and brought each of us a pair of crazy socks.

On Saturday afternoon we took a trip to a quilt shop in Sunnyvale, CA. It was called Eddie’s Quilting Bee. This was really indulgent of my sisters since I was the only one that really wanted to check the place out. (They’re so good to me!) Eddie’s shop was fairly well stocked. I wasn’t crazy about the way it was organized, or laid out, but I found a few treasures nevertheless.

The really bright piece with the butterfly showing in the center is from a line of Alexander Henry fabrics called ‘Querida’. It has a Latin flair and the colors are amazing. I don’t have a true plan for it but wanted to have it anyway. The piece with the text will be used as the backing for a table runner. Love the wine themed words. Finally there was a little fat eighth in a basket for a buck and I love the colors. Just another addition to the stash.

I have a really challenging game for you. 😉 This is where the giveaway comes in!

My sisters and I took a selfie (and being that all of us are way too old to be taking selfies, the quality is less than perfect) in front of Eddie’s Quilting Bee. Can you figure out which one is me?

Here is a version of the picture with numbers. To enter the giveaway, leave a comment with the number that corresponds to the picture that you think is me. If you want to have another entry, you can follow me on Bloglovin and leave a comment that you did so (or if you already do, just let me know that).

The giveaway stays open until Saturday, August 16th. At that point,I will use some sort of really scientific method to pick the winner. 🙂 I have three really pretty fat quarters for the winner. They are watercolor inspired, muted florals from Kathy Davis’ line called Enchantment that was designed for Free Spirit. Take a look.

Remember to make sure I have a way to contact you if you are selected! Leave an email address in the comment if you are a no-reply blogger. Giveaway is closed (I’m number 4). Lucky winner is Judy V.!!

Linking up with Anything Goes Monday, Sew Cute Tuesday, Freemotion by the River, Fabric Tuesday, WIP Wednesday and Let’s Bee Social. Also with Needle and Foot Thursday, TGIFF, and Finish it up Friday. All of these wonderful link-ups are listed in the tab at the top of the blog.

Scrappy Pleasures

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About 18 months ago I finally finished a quilt for my daughter’s bed. It was one of my first really challenging projects. I am happy with the way the quilt finished up, though it was harder than I expected. I used a pattern from Natalia Bonner’s wonderful book, Beginner’s Guide to Free Motion Quilting. This book has excellent information for those that, like myself, are trying to learn to FMQ. I am not sure the pattern that I used was really one for a new beginner. The piecing was a challenge. Long story short, I bit off way more than I had thought but now that it is done, I am happy I did it. Here is a picture of the quilt:

The pebbling took roughly 1.5 billion hours. Or at least, it felt that way The spirals were really hard because I quilted this on a fairly old Janome that isn’t equipped for FMQ. I couldn’t drop the feed dogs and I was fighting the machine the whole time. If you look closely at the quilting on this, it is painfully apparent that I was just learning. Again, glad I did this one and even happier that it is done!! (And happier yet that ,since then, I bought a newer Janome that quilts with ease!)

Once I finished this quilt I had amassed a huge pile of scraps. Cutting the lavender circles left a lot of waste. Here we are 18 months later and I finally used some of the leftover scraps.

I decided to make a throw pillow for Julia’s bed. l created a checkerboard with some blue and lavender squares and then added some borders. I love the floral print. It is an older Kaffe Fassett print that I used for the backing of this quilt. To quilt it, I made a quick sandwich with a piece of leftover batting and some lightweight muslin. I quilted a cross hatch pattern and then added the back.

I made the pillow cover “envelope style” so it all came together quickly.

Pretty cute.

I also made a little mat for Julia’s desk. My husband made her a desk for her 12th birthday. It has a walnut top and Julia had been putting a couple of pieces of felt underneath her desk lamp and some other items so the top wouldn’t get scratched. I made a rectangular mat (11 x 18″) for her to use instead.

This was a fun little project. I took an assortment of scraps and just played around with them until I found an arrangement that I liked. It was my first attempt at improv piecing. Just slicing and dicing and moving things around instead of drawing a sketch and measuring each piece. I am not one for doing things without a pattern or direction. I (usually) cook from recipes rather than just making things up as I go. As a kid, I colored within the lines. Get it? So playing with the fabric and just moving the pieces around was a fun exercise. As far as improv piecing goes, this is pretty tame. None of the pieces are wonky – it all lines up. Baby steps, right?? I used straight line quilting and machine binding.

Two scrappy projects completed and they brighten Julia’s room. (Honestly though, these two projects made hardly a dent in that scrap pile!) She is at camp this week and these will be fun surprises for her to come home to.

Linking up with: Linky Tuesday at Free Motion by the River; Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story; Sew Cute Tuesday at Blossom Quilts; WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced and Let’s Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts.