finished: illuminations pillow

Tags

fall for solids contest, illuminations pillow, improv piecing, pillow, quilting, sewing

The color orange cures the common cold.

Science.

We’ve all been down since Friday with a nasty, hateful cold. Thankfully, the toddler seemed to have it the easiest this time around. Nate and I? We assume that, like hangovers, colds get worse as one approaches 30. A crate of mandarins, a crockpot full of beef stew, some chili gifted by a dear friend (when in doubt, give chili!), and sooo much Sesame Street later, we’re all on the mend.

When I’m sick, I get super-restless. I want to get up and move and do and go and make. So this pillow went from pile o’ fabric and a book-cover inspiration to finished pillow rather quickly. This pillow is a few firsts for me: 1) first all-solid project: I’m entering it in the Pink Castle Fabrics Fall For Solids contest over at Threadbias;  2) first improv piecing: I’m MOST pleased with the way the design came together. Having just heard Alissa Haight Carlton speak about her quilts and her process definitely made this click for me!; 3) first non-quilt inspiration: I didn’t see something on Pinterest, Flickr, or a blog and make a quilt just like it. I did it all myself!;  and 4) first binding on a pillow: ahem.

I’m showing you the back because we’re all friends here and you won’t make fun of my crappy pillow binding, yeah? I tried to sandwich the binding between the front and the envelope back layers, which was bass-ackwards of me (should have put on the back, and then attached the binding…right?), I did a crappy job tacking it down, my corners are sad, sad, and…to beat the band, I sewed the private layer on top of the public layer so I had a raw edge I had to try and bind off at the end. Even that I did upside-down, so I have the ugly shoulda-been-private side showing.

Sick, congested, and fed up, I shrugged, refused to seam-rip, and am just going to enjoy it.

Here it is with the book cover that inspired it, Walter Benjamin’s Illuminations. Honestly, I haven’t read any Benjamin since grad school, but that cover stuns me every time I walk past it on my back bookshelf. I think it turned out pretty neat, huh?

 

Edited to add stats: 18” pillow cover. Konas: tangerine (yum), bone, aqua, coal. improv pieced, circle and “stem” off circle are machine-applique, bone inner circle is raw-edge applique. machine quilted, meandering.

scrap break

Tags

pillow, quilting, quilts, rainbow scrap pillow, scraps

Stash-Up 2012 has begun this week. So far this week I’ve placed two smallish orders; I’ve got 2-4 more in planning for next week. My goal is to get STASHED UP. The kind of stashed up where I don’t have major color gaps (my biggies right now are red, orange, and purple) and where I can spur-of-the-moment start almost any project from stash.

Yes, I told my husband.

In all this thinking about what fabrics I don’t have, I took a little break and looked at what I do have. I labor under this delusion that I don’t even HAVE any scraps, I use them up all the time, la la la, remember those scrappy pillows? Only, I dumped out the scrap bag and had this:

And then I dug around in my pile from my momma (I knew she had some purple; d’you know I’ve never bought one. single. bit. of purple fabric? Weird.)

 Why, yes, I know this pile from my mom makes me an *excellent* prospective scrap vomit scrap swap partner. I’m keeping my eye peeled for another swap.

With this and this in my head, and with a little sorting, a little sewing, ironing, and trimming, and much “help” from my chief 17-month-old scrap sorter (who did not nap today), I have the below. Deadline for having this pillow cover DONE, quilted and backed and everything, is Wednesday. I think I’ll probably make it.

Here’s hoping the seam allowances don’t eat most of my little colorful corners…