Hello again, all!
I wanted to talk about what I made for Lynn for our swap. Yesterday, I wrote about what she made for me. Today I'll show you what I made for her (click on any of the photos in this post to see them larger):
Lynn told me she wanted a new pillow for her sewing room. I snapped a photo of her sewing room when I was there last summer:
It's not the greatest photo, becuase I was using my cell phone. But you can see her gorgeous teal/turquoise tubs. There's a rocking chair in the corner that you cannot see. That's where the pillow would sit. I knew I wanted to make something that would pop and fit in with her tubs.
I used some of my Madhuri fabric that Amanda Herring (The Quilted Fish) had given to me, and I paired it with some turqoise and white Kona. I made the diamonds with Amanda's new diamond ruler. (This ruler is pretty fun!) I hand pieced the star using an English Paper Piecing technique (I made the paper pieces myself, using the diamond ruler), then made the pillow top, and finally hand appliquéd the star onto the pillow.
After that, I layered the top onto some batting and hand stitched some big-stitch quilting stitches around the star. I used different colors of perle cotton--colors that echoed the colors in the fabric--moving from light to dark.
I started with closer-together lines, and made them spread out as they radiated outward as they went away from the star. (Here's a secret....after all that hand stitching, I decided maybe I should include some quilting on the star, just for good measure. I machine stitched, in "invisible thread," in the ditch all the way around and across all the inner seams on the star. I absolutely hated it. I then spent three hours upicking all those stitches. I'm glad I did. It was totally worth it.)
I didn't want the quilting to get too "busy," so that's why I started spreading them out more as the perle cotton colors got darker.
I sewed some red pom pom fringe around the edges. That was interesting to do! I hadn't done that on anything this large or "real" before. (I'd only sewn a little on some small doll pillows.) Not easy stuff to attach! (For me, anyway!)
I purposely let this one star tip run off the edge of the pillow and cut it off. Papa Pea said he did not like that....that it made it look like I had made a mistake.
For the back of the pillow I made a zipper opening, with a flap to cover it. Usually I do an invisible zipper at the bottom of the pillow, but I wanted to try something new this time. I used Amy's (of Amy Made That!) tutorial for making this zipper closure. I have to tell you, this was pretty slick and easy, with a really nice, classy, finished result. I highly recommend this tutorial! Aside from the great covered zipper, Amy recommends interfacing the pillow parts. I like that. It gives the pillow fabrics more body and weight. I think it gives a really professional looking finish. I hope you agree!
Anyway, I had a ton of fun making this. I think Lynn liked it, which makes me happy. Papa Pea said it was a shame I had to send it away to someone. He liked it a lot. :-)
I'm thinking about writing a tutorial for how I made the star--and perhaps the entire pillow. If that's something you'd be interested in, let me know. I may try to do it. It might be spring (maybe Market time) before I can do it, but let me kow what you think. Maybe that will motivate me to actually do it. LOL.
Thanks for reading! I hope you have a great day!
Until next time,
