June 22, 2018

Pillows Part 2!


I shared on Instagram a while back that in preparation for new baby, we did some bedroom shifting and my oldest and youngest moved to bigger beds. In the spirit of the move, my oldest got excited and asked if he could have a decorative pillow for his new bed. Well don't mind if I do! I LOVE making pillows, and it's very rare that requests like that come my way from these boys.

That turned into everyone getting to design their own pillow, which has been such a delight for me. We started out by looking at my Pinterest board Quilts, and they walked me through what kinds of things they liked.


My middle guy chose simple herringbone in his favorite colors. (Note his outfit below, which has been worn most days so far this summer!) We didn't follow a pattern, but I started with (18) 4" scrap squares in gray and made those into HSTs. That gave us 3" finished HSTs in a 6 by 6 grid for an 18" pillow. He helped me quite a bit along the way, snipping chain pieced units, matching up HSTs, and arranging them. He was very invested!



I tried to include some fun little messages for him in the dark grey Lori Holt text print (though he doesn't read quite yet), and half achieved my goal. I like how the "Yay" is visible, but cut off the "happiness". Oh well!


He was very pleased with it nonetheless and I was happy to have this one done, mostly because he kept changing his mind! After I'd already sewn in half of a green zipper, he decided it had to be blue. Normally I'd try to talk him into changing his mind, but I didn't want him to look at it forever and wish it was blue, so out it came.

Next up was little guy. He can't really articulate a lot of opinions yet, but we know he likes yellow, and he loves to sing. One of his favorite songs it "Mr. Golden Sun". I started researching sun patterns and remembered this adorable pattern by Center Street Quilts.  I love that it's called "You Are My Sunshine". He truly is my little sunshine!


Though I'm not widely experienced in paper piecing or sewing curves, I knew it would be perfect. The pattern was easy to follow and after a quick refresher video tutorial on paper piecing, I was well on my way.


One of my favorite things about these three pillows is that they are all from scraps! I absolutely love putting my scrap bin to good use.


I bordered it in a Bonnie and Camille basics print in grey. I wish I had done something lighter, but what's done is done! I used crosshatch quilting as described in my last post.


Like his big brother, he was absolutely delighted to have his own pillow. What a gratifying moment for a maker mom.


Last but not least, big guy has LOTS OF OPINIONS. We love him for it. We hope to live up to his expectations, haha! While looking at the Center Street Patterns page, he took notice of the cute little flag minis. He felt very strongly about there being the correct number of stripes, however, so I used my trusty EQ7 to figure out how to make that work for the pillow size we wanted.


I won't be writing up a pattern for this one considering we stole the idea from Kristina, and there are just so many flag patterns out there. We used scraps once again, and he chose the Sarah Jane map print for the back. It wasn't a perfect repeat with the print but it still turned out pretty cute.



I did a wavy horizontal quilting stitch on my Husqvarna Opal. He's happy with it, so mission accomplished! It works really well in his new room. It's so fun to see them grow up and develop personalities and preferences.


I told them this was in part their gift from the new baby. I usually like to get them new pajamas or something, but I think they liked this even better! Thanks for indulging me in a personal post of sorts.


3 comments :

  1. Love that the boys got to be part of the process. Family in motion … welcoming the next addition with something to snuggle and hold from mom. The new little bundle comes into a nest of love!

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  2. The pillows are all beautiful!! It's lovely to hear that the boys all take part in designing their pillow.
    color picker

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