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I tend to work more in small designs: table runners, wall hangings and pillows. I do throws as well, but overall the small form is what I do most. I am working on a concept where for every holiday I have a table runner, a pillow and a wall hanging. The pillow above is for my Christmas threesome. I have a Christmas table runner and almost got my Christmas wall hanging done, but not quite.
I am getting into crazy quilting. Right now the crazy stitching is done on the machine, but I will work more with hand stitching later. Again, this is from a first Saturday class at my LQS. For this pillow, we all started with a 12” piece of muslin. We did this via foundation piecing. We were told the first piece has to be cut with 5 unequal sides. The first piece is the center of the pillow, so you want a bit of focus. I liked the holly berries with evergreen. I cut it with a rotary cutter and centered it on the 12” muslin and attached it with a bit of fabric glue to hold it down.
From here on out it is a bit of free form. The strips are different widths from 1.5” to 2.5”. I laid the small red and grey piece fabric down next, with the long edges lined up, and sewed in a 1/4” seam. Folded over the red and grey fabric and pressed it. Next I laid down the green with grey swirls, lined up the long edges and sewed and pressed. Next was cream, and then solid red and then plaid.
You keep going around and around, like a log cabin block. At this point all seams are hidden. Standard foundation work.
Once you have completely covered the muslin, give it a final good press and the fun begins deciding which stitches on your sewing machine — or hand stitching — you are going to use. You just run the stitches over the previously sewn stitch line, trying to keep the center of the ornamental stitch over the sewing line.
I prefer larger pillows, so I decided to do a double border. The inner border is a upholstery watered yellow /cream silk I had a little of; the outer border is a print I thought went well with the project.
I prefer my pillows a little firmer so the final size was 17.5”, which when I added the back was 17” with an 18” pillow form.
I’m looking forward to doing a crazy quilt throw, but first I have a Valentine wall hanging to do and then a baby quilt.
So what are you quilting during this cold (in the midwest) weather?