One pillow or two?

As promise earlier in the week, I want to show you the pillow I made for a customer. Her sister lost a child recently and she had a couple of his favorite tee shirts, which I quilted and made into one pillow. 


I used the backs of the shirts because both had beautiful wing motifs and challenged myself to use the wings for the quilting.  

The backing is this green/beige knit that was in my stash. It worked quite well and didn't pucker at all despite having a good bit of stretch to it.


The background has a simple but small stipple so that the wings and crosses would be the focus. I started out by quilting the entire back of the shirt and, once that was done, measured the usable quilted area so she could decide what size pillow she wanted--20" square. 

So the red shirt became one side of the pillow and the black shirt became the opposite side, giving her a pillow with two usable sides.

The red shirt was much easier to quilt since much of it had stippling and the wings and cross were less intricate. Following the lines was not as difficult as I'd feared. I wish you could see or feel the texture of the wings, especially on the red shirt. I found myself just rubbing my fingertips up and down the wings. Very textural and soft. 

Now the black shirt was another story altogether. Look at the intricate detail of that Celtic cross and those gray wings were difficult to distinguish from each other. There was no get-in-the-zone-and-go kind of quilting! I had to go slow and steady always looking for the next turn or corner and trying to not stop. Stitches lose their pretty, even lengths every time I stop, so the key is to just not stop. Once I did one area, I had to go slow enough on the next to replicate the design. I couldn't quilt every line because that would have messed up the texture. So slow, and steady, and slower it was.

But the end result is stunning! Considering that the end result went to a grieving mother, I am honored to have been the one asked to undertake such a special job. 


What have you done lately that was extra-special?

How to Make Decorator Corners on Pillows Tutorial

Yesterday I promised to write a tutorial on how to create pillow corners so that the corners look square. They really aren't, but you'll see that in a moment. I'll assume that you've already sandwiched and quilted the front panel of your pillow cover and are ready to make the back and sew everything together.

Cutting the back panels
First determine the size you will need for the envelope backing.  Let's say you are making a 14" square pillow cover. Your back will need to be 14" in length. To determine the width, take that number (14") and divide by two (now you have 7") then add four inches (for a total of 11"). Cut two pieces of fabric 11" X 14". 

Let's do another one just for fun using 18" for the square pillow.
18 / 2 = 9 add the 4" overlap 9 + 4 = 13 so your backing panels will be 13" X 18".

Tip: You can use the same equation for any size pillow--just substitute the very first number (18 in this case).

Tip: I find that adding four inches works well, but you can make adjustments if you want more or less overlap. Keep in mind that more overlap makes getting the pillow form into the cover difficult. Less overlap will distort your pillow.

Hem the panels
Fold and press one long side to form a small ¼ inch hem, then fold and press again so the raw edge is completely enclosed. Sew your hem and repeat on the other 11" X 14" panel. In this next picture you can see how the panels are hemmed (blue arrow) and then placed on the pillow top.

Layer the pieces (RST)
You're ready to layer the pieces. Start with the quilted front of the pillow cover. Lay it down on your work surface, right side up. Place your back pieces so that the finished sides of seams are facing down and are in the center of the panel. In the picture above you can see how the sewn edges overlap each other in the center of the pillow cover. 

Mark the corners
Before you sew, you'll need to mark the pieces so that you can cut off a bit of each corner. A better way to explain this is to show you the outcome.

Notice how the purple and gold pillow has "bat ears" sticking out? The other pillow looks square. That's because I trimmed the corners to give it the illusion that it's square.


The way to achieve this look is actually quite easy. Begin at one corner of the pillow and measure ½ inch from the corner. Using a fabric pen, make a small dot. Now draw a line from the dot to about ¼ of the way toward the center edge like in the drawing. Draw lines on all four corners. Look at the photo below (yes, it's the same as above). You can see the drawn lines on each corner. Notice that I didn't draw lines all the way around the pillow. That's because I will use my normal seam allowance and don't really need lines. (Or maybe because I'm lazy.)

Sew
Sew all the way around the pillow cover, using the drawn lines as necessary in the corners. Just keep a ¼ inch allowance where you don't have lines.  Easy peasy! Tip: If you are using your home sewing machine, you should zigzag close to the straight seam to prevent raveling.

Trim
Once the seam is complete, trim the seam allowance to ¼ inch in the corners to make turning easier. Tip: Be careful that you don't cut the zigzag stitches.  

Turn and Press
All that's left is to turn the pillow cover right side out through the overlapped back. Be sure to push the corners out to get a nice, sharp point. A good steam pressing should do the trick to keep the seams nice and crisp.

Extra Tips!
When pressing the seams, try not to push down on the center of the pillow so the quilting will stay nice and puffy. 

This method also works for pincushions. Just be careful to adjust how much of the corner to trim down. Small corners mean less to cut off!

I sometimes sew and cut the corners just a hair more than ½ inch. It will bring the corners down and make them more square. Be careful, though, too much will give the corners a rounded look. This purple and gold one is a good example of that. 

Now it's your turn! Tell me about this tutorial. Is it detailed enough? Did you understand each part or is something about it confusing? Seriously, let me know if you would use it when making pillow covers. I've been thinking of writing a few more tutorials now that I have a little more time, so your feedback is important.

Pretty Pillows ~~ finishes

I spent most of this afternoon quilting up a couple of pillows for a customer who plans to give them as Christmas gifts. 

Fun quilting! I mean really fun! My customer requested that I quilt the two new pillows like I quilted the cream part of this tricolor one.

I put the original pillow near the long-arm so I could easily refer to it when I needed inspiration. Of course, I added some new motifs. One of them was a mistake. lol So I made the mistake a couple more times. Plus, I had a few ideas that I decided to try out. 

They worked out quite well, so I've taken lots of close-up photographs. It's an easy way to remember what I did this time. Since the pillows will be gone in a two or three days, I won't have them as reference points.

The overall idea was simple: fill up the space with small, repetitive motifs. I used leaves, circles, flowers, tear-drops, feathers, scrolls, tiny stippling, and some things that I don't even have a name for.

If I had any sense, I'd try to draw them out in a notebook, but I haven't exhibited any attempts or sense. Maybe after I get the last of my Christmas sewing done. 

I plan to write a tutorial on how I sewed the pillows together. I especially want to explain how to get square, decorator corners, instead of pokey, pointy ones. Come back tomorrow or Sunday for that tutorial.

Linking Up with These Fun Parties!

My Quilt Infatuation (Needle & Thread)

Busy Hands Quilts (Finished or Not Friday)

Confessions of a Fabric Addict (Can I get a Whoop! Whoop!)

Crazy Mom Quilts (Finish It Up Friday) 

And because the quilting is very improv, I'm adding a link to AHIQ
with Ann of Fret Not Yourself
and Kaja of Sew Slowly

Purple and gold pillows ~~ 4 finishes!

I mentioned earlier that I'll have a booth in the craft show held during our quilt fair. Since I'd be sewing something anyway, I figured I'd quilt up a few pillow covers for the booth. In fact, all of the sewing I'll do between now and then will be items for the booth. 

The pillows match but are definitely not the same. I can't make two exact of anything. (That's rather boring.) So on  one the quilt there are a few small black spacers that separate parts of the pillow. The quilting on that one changes with each section. Notice the very thin line in the tiger stripe. It's a one inch strip folded in half and stitched into the seam.

The second pillow uses the same fabrics--except the black--but the sections are sewn in the same way that I make fabric with scraps. In fact, I used most of the smaller scraps left from the other three pillows. The graffiti quilting has many changing motifs repeated across the top. It's a fun design until I can't think of the next motif. I keep lots of inspiration quilts close at hand. And use them often!

These two pillows add to the ones I made a couple of weeks ago but didn't get to write about. 

The first one is just a color-block purple and gold using the same four fabrics that I used for all of the quilts. The matchstick quilting seemed to take forever. But I had fun playing with the yellow, purple and white thread. Notice how I made the one yellow chevron stand out by using yellow thread on it but purple thread on the purple chevron. Cool, right?

And the last one was actually the second one I made. Same idea of using bits and strips to create a unique pillow cover. The quilting: easy peasy crosshatch using my walking foot. It was so easy that I kind of felt like it was cheating. Honestly, I planned to use straight lines but decided it needed more. I think more was the answer, don't you?

To give you an idea of how they are alike and different at the same time, we had a little photo session this evening. I waited all day for a break in the nasty hurricane rain, but that didn't happen. I finally gave up, turned lots of lights, and snapped away. 

Can't you see these piled up on the sofa during a few purple and gold games? Or they might fit in a mancave. Marley came into the studio while I was taking pictures and practically begged for one. 

I guess I can make a few more if these sell at the craft fair. Christmas is around the corner!

A Little Linkup Love

Koka Quilts (sew stitch snap SHARE)

My Quilt Infatuation (Needle & Thread)

Confessions of a Fabric Addict (Can I get a Whoop! Whoop!)

Busy Hands Quilts (Finished or Not Friday)

Pin It Weekly #206

YahoO! and hooRay!

Pin It WeEkly #206! Fleur de Lis Quilts celebrates its fourth AnnIversary of 

Pin It Weekly this week! (yay!)

we've been shooting for 

25 pins a week and almost made it...

LiFe got in the way, but herE we aRe.

Let's CelEbrAte!

I've been pinning a few modern pillows because 1. I like them and 2. they can be great inspiration for quilts.

Pillows by She Can Quilt--look at that matchstick quilting!

A new board on my Pinterest pages, "farm, equipment" is a tribute (of sorts) to my dad and father-in-law who were both farmers when Richard and I married. 

The rest are just random pins that I recently discovered.

Not a pillow, but it sure would
make a great one!

The rest are just random pins that I pinned recently.

Thank you for celebrating with us. 
Fleur de Lis Quilts appreciates your visit.
Please leave a comment telling what your most recent pins are.