quilted pillow

Our quilt guild is hosting a quilt show in August and each of us are expected to make a wall hanging, less than 20″ in height as a raffle item. Me, being the smart aleck of the group, asked if I could make my entry a pillow instead.

I took an extra block from the scrap bag and put on a few borders before measuring the sides. A trip to Goodwill resulted in a matching men’s shirt and a pillow for the form for a few bucks. I cut the men’s shirt to match the top and sewed them together around all four sides. I clipped the corners and flipped it right side out before putting the pillow form inside and rebuttoning the back. I like this technique of making pillows as I don’t like sewing zippers or flaps and it has the added benefit of recycling.

 

 

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4 patch posy

For last year’s Maine quilt show I made a modern queen size quilt, free-motion quilted in teardrops and vines, but this year I wanted to make something smaller and more intensely quilted. Our guild made 4 patch posy blocks for Bags of Love charity quilts and I liked the results so much that I made a double sized one in blue/lime green for a friend. By stacking 4 layers of fabric and cutting squares, you get a kaleidoscope effect with half the work of a standard Stack and Whack. Then I used the same butterfly and flower fabric in a pink colorway, with miniature 4 patches as the border. It measures about 42″ by 52″ and is quilted with a large teardrop loop flower in each block center and micro-stippling in the sashing. I’ve been working through many of the designs in the 365 Free Motion Quilting Designs book by Leah Day and the flower design is #175.  After doing all that stippling I can see the pattern in the dark every time I shut my eyes. Since the show isn’t until July, I’ll put it aside for a while and work on some other projects before I start the binding.

notebook covers

Last year our quilt guild made these adorable covers for 5×8 inch pads of paper. They are great for keeping in the purse for grocery lists and such, with pockets for all those stray jotted notes that usually disappear in the depths of one’s bag. I made up some for Christmas gifts and then decided to attempt to sell them. I’ve made some with doggie prints for a local dog grooming shop owned by a friend and some with nautical themes to sell at the county craft co-op this summer. 

school auction quilt

Last year I made a queen-sized blue and white quilt for the local Catholic school yearly auction. The winning bid was $400 and so I decided this year to make a fancier quilt, a king-sized Log Cabin. The pattern is called Simple Tribute by Alice Berg from a 2003 American Patchwork and Quilting magazine. I’ve held onto the magazine that long simply to make this particular quilt. Now that it is finished, I don’t particularly want to make another since it contains 100 blocks, each one taking at least 20-30 minutes to make. Even with chain piecing meant that I think I put in over 100 hours. It looks a little ruffled at the edges just because it was folded just before I spread it out to photograph it, but it really does lie flat. I dropped it off at the school last week for the director of development to ooh and ahh over it. 

I free-motion machine quilted teardrops over the darker portions and stippled over the neutral portions and stiched in the ditch around each star. Next year I think I’ll pick a very simple pattern like a 4 patch posy to have more time to focus on the quilting and less on the piecing.