Modern Plaid Bright
Pillow #7
I've finally jumped the half way mark on my personal pillow challenge!  happy, happy!

I just can't do a plain ole scrappy squares anymore.  Even though it looks bright enough and I figure the quilting will add texture and dimension...

...adding these 1/4" sashings just brings these fabrics and the design to life, for me!

Comments were made on the last pillow of this design about the number of seams there must be...yeah, lots!

But they're sewn in strips.  It's not like actually having to sew all those 1" seams!...these pillows would not exist if I'd had to sew that many little tiny seams.

I'll be revisiting this pillow soon because I don't like the finished style that I "thought" was going to look really fun.  But I don't think it works.  So, first chance I get that I'm bored and don't know what to sew next, I'll be taking this one apart and redesigning it to the standard simple pillow I like.

This pillow is also an added project to this fat eighth fabric collection challenge that can be seen here as a flickr set.

While working on this pillow, I stumbled onto the blog of bohemiannie art  She was making the most unique baby shower invitations I've ever seen.  And their scrappyness was so inspiring to me, I had to immediately make a couple of postcards after I finished the pillow piecing.

I got so side tracked with postcards and inspiration, that when I got back to finishing the pillow, I totally forgot to add some batting and quilt it!  But it was going to look ok anyway.  I'll be able to add the quilting when I take it apart.

The two postcards above are going out in the mail soon.  Do I hear disappointment that you don't have a chance at them?!  Not to fret, I have a couple of bluebirds you might like.

Bluebird Postale

Bluebird in the Garden

If you aren't familiar with how my postcard giveaway works, you can read about it in this post .

While I wait to hear from you, I have more postcards I want to make.  More happy, happy!

Annie

Modern Plaid
A Pillow for July

Pillow #6

I won this Prairie Paisley II charm pack from Just Carol's blog last April.

 

How perfect for a July pillow is what I thought.  That's such a cute little tag Carol made to add to the charm pack.

I am really happy with the outcome of pillow #6

The back is from scraps and I feel just so clever for hiding the zipper in the design in the back. (2nd red stripe from the left).

   When I started this project, I actually thought it would be pretty easy to choose a pattern or design, stitch it up and love it.  It hasn't turned out to be that easy.  So when one turns out well in the end, it makes me really happy.

 

I want to make another pillow with this design in a different color...that's how happy I am with it!  Off to decide on what next color!  :-)

Annie

Blooming Measuring Tape

Pillow #5

My man very seldom makes any comments about what I sew.  However, this piece caught his eye.  Most  likely because of the measuring tapes...guys use them too.  His comment was:

 "Somebody got mad at their tape measure and cut it up."

I always thought I was to blame for mis-measurements but I can see now that the tape measure is the culprit and can be punished with scissors!

My tape measures are a download from Digital Collage Sheets that I printed to fabric (quite a while back) and cut apart.  I thought I had Wonder Under fused to the back of these but when they didn't "stick" when I ironed them in place...well, surprise!  So I had to tack them down with a glue stick. Then made them stay put with circular quilting. 

That was all I planned to do but I felt like it just needed a little something more.  Glass beads seem to be doing the trick for me.

I was a bit disappointed to use the same red fabric for the binding, but nothing else worked.  Another simple back with a few of the glass beads hanging from the zipper pull.

This was simply a fun wild design idea that popped into my head and I had to put it to play.  (I don't kid myself.  I'm sure this has probably already been thought up and done somewhere in the universe, but I haven't seen it.)  I think #5 looks fun next to #2

What I want to know is why is it that I really like some of these pillow covers while I'm working on them and when I put a pillow form inside them they don't look so wonderful anymore. Why is that?...why is that?

Just do it!

Annie

Revisiting Bird & Blooms

Now Pillow #4

I haven't been very happy with the outcome of this piece and have been eyeing it daily and it finally began to speak to me of what I might change.

Original details on this piece are in this post. 

The flowers bothered me the most.  They were too lost in the background.  I chose some pastel pieces to cut swirls to add to the thread painted swirls.  The stems and leaves were also very lost in the background and got fabric highlights added to them as well.

A bit more collage was created for the background to get it to a 15" pillow size and I'm now pretty happy with this piece.

  The back is simple.  I find that I like making the zipper part of the design and choosing one with color contrast for that purpose.  With my pillow zippers I'm trying to pull the "fun" out of "functional".

I think I need to look into some charms to decorate the zipper pulls.  This one will need a bird charm.

4 months into the year and 4 pillows.  At least I'm not behind...yet.  Pillow #5 is on the design wall and it also is asking for a bit of something extra.  I wonder what that might be.  I'll have to muse on it.

Annie

Altered Dresden

The unPillow 

I have this fat eighth collection that my friend Carol (mamacjt) shared with me just before I fled Wisconsin. 

Fat eighths make me think small project(s).  But there seems to be a lot more to a fat eighth than meets the eye.  A while back I made a couple of small projects with these and then decided to challenge myself to how many quiltie things I can make with the collection.  My flickr group of projects is here. 

I pulled out the predominantly pink pieces for this quiltie project.  I used my little Easy Dresden ruler to cut the wedges.  I stitched in a center circle and then satin stitched a spiral inside.

The spiral felt off centered (even though it wasn't), so I did a straight stitch following the spiral.  It still felt off.  Then the stitched-in center piece looked way less than perfect, so I cut and fused a ring to cover that ugly seam and it all came into a better perspective for me.  Plus I really like the way that light colored fabric ring looks.

 

I loved how this looked the entire time I worked on it. 

With the fixes to the center, it took on a whimsical look so I added a pink "stick".  I was SO happy with it.

Then I put the pillow form inside and my spirits took a spiraling dive!  It just doesn't look right as a pillow.  I hate that!

I think the design gets too distorted.  So, now what?  Well, I think maybe I'll try putting a thin foam piece inside and try it as a chair back cushion.  I'll just have to wait until it inspires me to know exactly what it should be.  But dang it all, I wanted it as a pillow!

There were some scraps left after cutting the wedges and the inside of the fabric ring was left as well.  I put them into the back.

This means I'm still on pillow #4.  So, I'll be back...

Annie

Pillow #3

My personal Pillow A Month Challenge

Flower Collage

One of my Flickr contacts, Krista Withers, lolablueocean, does a lot of free piecing and improv stitching.  She created wonderful flowers that I immediately fell in love with.  You can see her flowers and improv here .

I just had to make some for myself.  I can't even imagine free piecing them, so I drew up a paper piecing pattern for mine.

I ran a test as a postcard before starting in on the pillow top.

I've mentioned before that my process of a creation is starting with an idea and from there, making it up as I go along. Very seldom do I start out with an entire plan.

It turned out that the piecing process I used to make the flowers allowed me to create a bit of a different look for each one. That was a fun surprise.  The background for the flowers actually is free pieced and improv as well as some applique.  Doing the background this way was a big challenge for me.  This was my first time playing around with that.  Some of the background fabrics I made myself (you can see how I made the fabrics here)  and others are purchased fabrics.

I quilted with meandering straight line angles (for lack of a better description).  I'm 50/50 on whether it's over quilted or not.  I like it to look quilted but I do not like it when the quilting over powers the fabrics and design.

This pillow front sat for more than a week before I finally decided on the binding and the back.  I'm very stingy with my text fabrics and didn't want to "waste" a big chunk on that back side.  Feeling wild I decided to include the zipper as part of the design.

Me and my seam ripper became more than just good friends during this pillow creation, but I'm real happy with the way it turned out. 
It's my fave so far!

Thanks Krista for your awesome inspirational improv!

Annie

 

This pillow project is linked to Fabric Fascination's 12-Months Linking Party Check out all the fab creations!



Pillow #2

My personal Pillow A Month challenge

Reds on Checks
for February

My inspiration for this pillow came from my own wall quilt,

All In A Row.

I like the effect created within the checked area and wondered how it would look with the check as the entire background surface. 

While it doesn't have the same effect, I am happy with the result.  More strips may have taken me closer to what I envisioned,  but I like what happened with this design too.

I always make things a bit larger than the size I want it to finish at, so the extra went on the back...which turned into a happy surprise.

I'm enjoying the back as much as I'm enjoying the front. 

So far I'm enjoying this pillow challenge.  Pillow #3 is already underway and is my fave so far.  I'm actually beginning to wonder if I'll end up with more than 12 or if it will all come to a dead end all of a sudden.  I can be rather unpredictable.  Well, time will tell.  Until then, pillow love!

Annie

Pillow #1

My personal Pillow A Month Challenge

Snowflakes
for January

My inspiration for my first pillow came from Marci Girl Designs and her Snowflakes.  I thought these snowflakes were so cute and I wanted to give them a try.  So I drew up a paper piecing pattern and began sewing.

I wanted the snowflakes to be white on blue backgrounds.

I pull the papers off while watching TV. 

I have a wonderfully fun shiny yellow metal trash can for my sewing and the shiny reflected onto the paper from the camera flash.  Makes the photo look strange...like I had chocolate all over my fingers!  Well I probably was eating chocolate, but I would never waste any like that!

Then I stitched them all together with a tiny flake and a cardinal.  I think maybe I would like this pillow better if I had made the background all the same color so that the flakes would look more like they are floating.  But, I got to spend a little time playing with the snowflakes, which is the purpose of this challenge, so I'll keep it around a while then probably give it away.

The back has a single snowflake and a zipper closure.

It's been so long since I've made a pillow that I'd forgotten I don't need a zipper the same size as the pillow.  Since that zipper pull wants to flop around at the edge there, I think I need to find a snowflake charm to attach to it.

If you already made a pillow too, I'd love to see it.  Please include your web address for your photo so that I can have a peek and I'll also include it in this post so others can enjoy it as well.

One down, eleven to go.  On to the next pillow...

Annie

Another New Beginning

Another chance to begin anew.

I don't have a need for resolutions this new year, so I thought about some other way to challenge myself.  There it is...that word...challenge.

I am challenge challenged.  Every time I challenge myself to a long term or ongoing project, I fail.  So I've given this some thought deciding it must be something that I know I can accomplish if I really want to.  My problem is that I hate having to sew something that I don't particularly want to sew at any given time.  So I've tried to think of a project that I want to sew and should be able to accomplish without the feeling of the dread of a time frame and deadline.

This brought to mind all the techniques and works of others that I've collected in my favorites in my flickr account.  There are so many that I want to try or just copy (for shame).  Then I thought I could use some decorative accent pillows around the place.  So this is my challenge for myself for this new year.

A Pillow a Month Challenge
 12 pillow covers by the end of 2012.  This is a way for me to play with some of those favorites ideas, without having to make a large quilt or just another wall hanging.  Now that I've made this decision, I know that it has to be reasonable for me to accomplish.  So, I'm not limiting myself to exactly one pillow per month.  Just that I will make enough pillows as there are months in the year. 

I'm very fearful that this challenge too will be unsuccessful at some point, but I'll begin with a very positive attitude that this will be done!  As with all new projects, it's an excited attitude to begin with.  Pillow #1 is now underway!  I thought 18" would be a good size.  I'm not so sure now, but this first one will be that size.  I think I'll probably work with a variety of sizes. 

I'll be back soon with a finished pillow to share my enthusiastic effort to begin anew!  If you like the idea and would be interested in joining me in this challenge, let me know and I'll figure out how to link your pillows with my pillow posts.  I'm sure if I had "partners-in-crime" for this challenge I'd have a much better chance at success

I'm off to ring in the new year with my sewing machine...because you forgot to invite me to your wild New Year's Eve party!
Happy New Year!
Annie