Fifth Finish of 2011: Floralgraphix Pillows

I don’t know why it took me so long to get up the courage to make pillows! After making a few, I find them to be quick and easy projects. For me, the most challenging part is making sure the cover fits the pillow form. For some reason, the pillows forms that I buy are not true to size.

After making a hexagon pillow for a friend, I knew I had to make one for myself. I’ve heard of people getting burnt out on English paper pieced hexagons, but this is my third (small) hexagon project and I still love them. To go with the hexagon pillow, I chose to make a plus pillow. I have long admired the plus quilts I have seen on the blogosphere, but have been intimidated by them. I thought that I couldn’t make one for myself since I don’t have a design wall where I can plan the fabric placement. I am very happy with how my pillow turned out, but am not sure that I would make a plus quilt, still due to the lack of design wall.

The fabric for both these fabrics is one of Jason Yenter’s Floralgraphix lines, for In the Beginning Fabrics, plus one Tula Pink fabric that coordinates well. My mom made me a diamond quilt and then gave me the scraps. It lives on the banister in our living room and I felt it needed a couple pillows to keep it company. I still have a ton of scraps left over, so maybe one day I will make a table runner to match.

First Finish of 2011: Blue Pillows

My first finish of 2011 was a gift that I wanted to keep for myself. When one of my dearest friends moved into her own apartment, I wanted to make something for her new place. Like so many others, I love working with English paper pieced hexagons. I thought they would be the perfect project for my third trimester when I couldn’t use my sewing machine and could only sew by hand. I underestimated how time-consuming hexagons can be. I started the hexagon pillow in October of 2010, gave birth in November 2010 and didn’t finish the hexagon pillow until January 2011. The smaller pillow I started and finished in one day.

One reason I wanted to keep these pillows is that blue is my favorite color. Also, I used scraps from three different quilts, in addition to a fat quarter from my stash. One of my favorite things about quilting is using the same fabric in multiple projects. I love how quilts are connected that way. The scraps used in these pillows came from my first large quilt, the only wedding quilt I’ve made, and a quilt that I recently gifted to a co-worker. I still have some scraps let over, too!

Neither of these pillows is from a pattern. I just made it up as I went along. I ran into a little bit of trouble because the 14” and 16” pillow forms actually measured 13” and 15” respectively. Luckily I had added borders that were wide enough to trim down, so it buffed out. My mom let me use her sewing room and mad babysitting skills so that I could finish this project sooner rather than later. Thanks, Mom!