Gifting, pt. 3
Gosh, I'm beginning to lose the thread of the frenzied efforts that led up to Christmas '09 (that was a whole decade ago, after all!) but I tried a few new techniques and wanted to share them. At any rate, I have two other nieces besides the one who got the Eclipse quilt, and they needed gifts, too! Obviously, pillows were the answer. Specifically, quilted pillows, because if one can quilt it, one should.

The construction ideas were all mine, because a) I was in a rush, and b) I thought it would look cool. For Maggie's pillow, I re-purposed my Eclipse maquette, (remember this?) ripping seams here, sewing others there. I pinned it to some quilt batting and quilted an open-faced quilt sandwich, as it were. I had an 18" pillow form tucked away in a box in the garage, and found that two twenty-inch squares, after quilting and being sewn together with some leftover double-faced home-made bias binding, made for the perfect proportions for my pillow form. If I had more time, I might have figured out how to make the pillow case come off the pillow form for easy washing, but I didn't. My unstated advice to my two nieces, "don't spill a beer on your pillow once you get to college, or let your roommate step all over it when they have frosting on their shoes" (true stories from my college days!)

For Linnea's pillow I un-shoeboxed some remnants from the very floral quilt I made her back in 2002? I wasn't sure if I disliked the floral-ocity of the fabrics enough to start anew, but finally decided, "hey, it will coordinate!" The pattern was Jacob's Ladder from 101 Fabulous Rotary Cut Quilts, to this day, one of the hardest patterns I ever sewed.

The resulting pillows, if a little musty from their long hibernation periods in my sewing room and/or garage, were delightfully soft and kind of snazzy looking. The bias binding gave them a slightly professional piped-edge look. All in all, a good way to use up quilt scraps!