Initial Pillow No. 6

I missed July’s pillow challenge over at QuiltShopGal’s blog.  Between working overtime, a vacation (a fabulous, and short, one week stay with my son and his family), and a horrendous fire season in my neck of the woods, I’m lucky that I managed to finish a pillow in August.

But finish I have!

The expert this month is the very talented teacher, and author, Angela Walters.  Definitely check out her blog, website and classes!

I designed this pillow using EQ7 software.  It will be a Christmas gift for a young grandson.

I’m using one of my favorite threads, Aurifil 50 weight, for my quilting.

I started my free motion quilting right off by sewing through my Supreme Slider.  Ha, ha!

At least I caught the mistake early.  I know…I should have taped the slider down.  Never skip this step! 

I finished quilting without the thing.

Here’s a couple of close-ups (I need to work on getting even stitches):

And a lousy photo of the back (the tension is good, but the photographer really needs to bone up):

A look at the back of the pillow with a covered zipper insert:

One more look at the front (by the way, I have too small of a pillow form in there…it’ll look better with the right size):

I have chosen to do Option 1 from the August challenge.  I participated in the 2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge and you can see my blog post using Angela Walter’s tile quilting here.

I am linking up to this year’s challenge here.

Previous pillows/challenges:

Joy Pillow

Initial Pillow No. 1

Initial Pillow No. 2

Initial Pillow No. 3

Initial Pillow No. 4

Initial Pillow No. 5

Initial Pillow No. 5

For this month’s pillow, I have taken my inspiration from Diane Gaudynski’s Guide to Machine Quilting.  I have owned this excellent, comprehensive book for many a year.

Diane is a very talented award winning quilter and I admire her work very much! 

You can find lots of eye candy and free motion quilting tips on Diane’s blog!

Diane is an elegant, traditional quilter and uses lots of feathers and echo quilting.  I saw this feather on page 69:

And on page 31 of Diane’s book:

I drew a version of it with a blue marker on a white tone-on-tone cotton fabric (I would have used silk, or sateen, if I had any, but couldn’t find any in my stash of fabrics.) 

The ‘J’ is the initial of the name of a good friend to whom I will be giving this pillow.

A layer of batting is stitched with water soluble thread, and then carefully trimmed.

I wish I were better at taking photos, especially of white on white!

Since my friend likes pink, I am using a 40 weight pink variegated Aurifil thread for the feathers and the letter.  The rest of the wholecloth quilting is done with 50 weight white Aurifil thread.

You can begin to see the texture forming!

Finished and washed:

Detail:

Like the other pillows that I have been making, this one is simple with a covered zipper.

Last look:

I participated in QuiltShopGal’s 2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge, so it would’ve been fun for me to repeat Diane’s lesson and compare the ‘then and now’.  I may do that yet.  However, I am doing Option 2 from this year’s Free Motion Quilting Challenge, and I will be linking up over there.

Previous pillows/challenges:

Joy Pillow

Initial Pillow No. 1

Initial Pillow No. 2

Initial Pillow No. 3

Initial Pillow No. 4

Initial Pillow No. 4

This month’s pillow is for my second granddaughter.

I used Cindy Needham’s Ultimate circle stencil to create a guide to free motion quilt.

I didn’t want to use the larger circles, but I did start marking one by mistake. Oops.

After marking the lines from the stencil that I needed, it is simply a matter of ‘connecting the dots’, in my case, for petals.

Then it got complicated.  I had drawn s0 many lines that I really needed to concentrate on which ones that I was going to quilt on.

I thought it easiest for me to outline stitch the lines that I needed, and fill them in later.

I hadn’t decided how I wanted to fill the petals, so I quilted the centers and the background first.

Now we are getting somewhere!  Love the texture!

I used Wonderfil Invisifil 100 wt. to outline stitch the letter and the ladybug.  Aurifil variegated 40 wt. was used to free motion quilt the flowers, and Aurifil 50 wt. was used for the background stitching, as well as appliqueing the letter.

The finished pillow:

Just a simple covered zipper backing:

I didn’t think that I would make it this month, but here it is the last day of the month, and I can still link up to QuiltShopGal’s May free motion quilting pillow challenge.  Yay!  I chose Option #1.

Be sure to check out Cindy Needham’s website and blog.  She is a fabulous quilter and teacher!

Joy Pillow

Initial Pillow No. 1

Initial Pillow No. 2

Initial Pillow No. 3

Initial Pillow No. 3

This month’s initial pillow is for my oldest granddaughter (who is not all that old).  I appliqued a pink letter A onto a patchwork background.

I am using 50 weight Aurifil in the bobbin.  I tried something new to me for my top thread…Wonderfil’s Konfetti, also 50 weight.  I had trouble with it fraying until I switched to a size 14 needle.  Then all was well!

I like Christina Cameli’s peapod free motion quilting design, so I used it here.  I stitched with a small scale, so didn’t really like how it turned out.  At first.  After I got the whole picture, I decided the texture was pretty cool.  However, I still think I’d like the peapod design stitched out on a larger scale better.

The peapod fmq design is alternated with Christina’s branching free motion quilting design.  I felt the same about the results of this stitching, as I did with the peapod stitching.

Here is how the completed quilting looks from the back (as a wholecloth project, I really like it…but no one will ever see the back):

A closer look:

The front of the pillow top before sewing into a pillow and washing:

The completed pillow (washed, so that I can admire the texture washing creates):

The back is made from a sweet plaid, and has a concealed zipper.

I chose option #4 from QuiltShopGal’s 2015 April Free Motion Quilting Challenge.  I am linking up here.

Check out Christina’s blog; she has many ideas and tips to help and inspire your free motion quilting!

Joy Pillow

Initial Pillow No. 1

Initial Pillow No. 2

Initial Pillow No. 2

For my first initial pillow, I chose to create a pillow cover for my youngest grandchild.

This time, I have created a pillow covering for my oldest grandchild.  His favorite color is orange, and he is partially color blind.

I wanted borders around the letter and star so that I could use a variety of free motion quilting designs.

Whether I am free motion quilting a pillow cover, or a full-size quilt, I like to begin by stitching in the ditch to stabilize my project.  It also allows me to remove the pins so that they no longer hinder my stitching (I quilt with a domestic sewing machine).

Wonderfil Invisfil is my favorite thread to use for stitching in the ditch.

I used one of Cindy Needham’s stencils to easily mark quilting lines on the star points.  I could have used several choices of markers, but I used chalk that I pounced on.

I also like to use Pam Clarke’s stencils for marking.  The grids are great for spacing even distances for parallel quilting or many other types of designs.

The rest of the free motion quilting on the pillow cover was done without marking.  I use Aurifil 50 weight thread for the quilting.

This is the finished pillow before washing:

The pillow back has a concealed zipper.

There is a lot of texture after washing!

I am doing Option #1 from QuiltShopGal’s Free Motion Quilting Challenge 2015 March (featuring Patsy Thompson).  Here is a link to the post that shows my participation in the Patsy Thompson part of the Free Motion Quilting Challenge 2012.

I am linking up with quiltshopgal.