Pillow Making is Time Consuming!!

I live on a street of front porches!  Most of the homes were built prior to WWII and just about every house has a porch that runs all the way across the front.  Many of us create a cozy living space where we can spend part of the day relaxing and visiting.  This year, I'm redoing the soft furnishings to coordinate with my fruit and veggie Tessellated Windmill quilt

For the past few days, I've been making new covers for the small pillows.   I started with my Alphabet Sampler pattern (now available in my Etsy Shop HERE) and made the largest size letters (7 1/2" tall).

 

The letters are easy to make.  I did "C" for carrots, "O" for onions, and "T" for tomatoes!

I had small amounts of each of the prints so had to do some creative stretching and adding to get panels the right size.

Since my APQS George is in rehab, I played with straight line walking foot quilting ideas on my Bernina.

It's hard to see what I did on the fronts so I took some photos of the backs to share. 

I used up some fabric from the "don't want it anymore" box

I outlined each letter so they stand out. 

You can tell this was the last one -- my "straight" lines are a bit wobbly. 

Once the quilting was finished, it was time to trim them to size and do the finishing!

Ugh!!  The finishing.  I don't enjoy making pillows covers.  It's the edges.  Ruffles are out of style these days which is fine with me, but a corded edge really gives a pillow a nice look.

Since I really wanted to be outside, I set up my satellite studio out on the back patio and stayed put until the job was finished.

I used 3/16" upholstery cording and bias cut 2" wide strips of fabric.

The zipper foot does a pretty good job for sewing right up against the edge of the cording though I think my older machine has a special foot for that.  Must remember to look! 

I use a longer stitch as this seam will be stitched a couple more times. 

And matching thread is a better choice in case the stitching shows in a few places on the finished pillow cover. 

Once the cording is covered, I trim the seam allowance down to approximately 1/4".  Then I baste the covered cording to the pillow front.

Rounding the corners is the easiest and I start clipping the seam allowance every 1/4" starting about 1" before the corner until I'm 1" past the corner. 

I do an overlapping join.  There is a couple inches of covered cording at the beginning that I did not stitch down.  I've trimmed it (the left side piece).  I stop stitching several inches before the end and at that point, I cut the end off a couple inches past the beginning. 

Now I pull loose the stitching until the cord is exposed. 

I trim just the cord flush with the beginning. 

Now I fold back at least 1/2" of the fabric. 

And insert the beginning of the covered cording into the folded back end so the two ends of the cord are nestled together. 

Finally, I tuck everything in place -- it usually takes some poking with the tip of my scissors.

 

And finishing stitching across to meet the beginning. 

Now I'm ready to add the backing piece, trim the corners, and turn it right side out.

There, that wasn't so bad and now I'm ready to clean the porch and get it set up this weekend for some summer relaxing!!

 

All the fabric came out of my stash -- I even completely wiped out a few pieces of fabric plus I can cross another goal off my second quarter list for 2015 Finish Along. 

(The original list is HERE.) 

 

Placemats are next!!

 

Mary Huey

 

Linking up over at PINK DOXIES PET PROJECT!

 

Linking up with all the other finishers at the

2015 Finish-along over at On the Windy Side!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pillow Talk -- Not just for Lovers!!

Just before Christmas, I had a note from Sherry over at Sherry Quilts.  She had used my Alphabet pattern to make a half dozen pillows for her favorite kids!  I was thrilled.  When I wrote the pattern back in the 1980's I didn't intend for quilters to make the sampler like the pattern photo -- I thought they would use the letters as "banners" within their quilts -- well, that's how I've always used them. 

I asked Sherry for permission to share her idea and I used it this week to make a couple Easter treats for my grands!  The pattern has a chart of all 26 letters of the alphabet plus the number 0 through 9 in four sizes -- 3 3/4" tall, 5" tall, 6 1/4" tall and 7 1/2" tall.  It uses squares and rectangles plus snowball corners so there are no templates -- everything can be rotary cut!

 

I purchased two small pillow forms -- a tube and a rectangle.  I settled on fabrics from "the most awesome" stash of fabric in the world and cut everything for GRACE to begin.

At the sewing machine, I laid out each letter -- this is a "C". 

I had all five letters together in under an hour.

The spacers between the letters make them look so much better!

I chose a fat quarter of a Riley Blake print from a stack I've been hoarding.

I've never covered a tubular pillow form so I had to stop and do some research.  I found this VIDEO from Sailrite.  It is a decorator approach and I simplified my approach a bit but watching the video helped me gather my thoughts.  This is what I came up with for my pillow.

I made a wide "casing" for each end to get a gathered finish.  Once I determined how long the main part needed to be, I cut two bands -- one for each end of the cover.  The width of these bands is the diameter of the end of the pillow form. 

I folded each casing piece in half bringing the short ends together, right sides facing and stitched a seam leaving a 1/2" opening to one side of the center.  The pencil mark by my finger is the center. 

Once I pressed the seams open, these become the openings for casings that I threaded ribbon through. 

Now I folded each casing in half, wrong sides together and you can see that the opening is right by this folded edge. 

I also stitched the short ends of the pillow cover body together so I have a tube.  Now I inserted each casing in one end of the pillow tube (which is turned wrong side out), matching the raw edges and pinning everything in place. 

The opening in the casing needs to be against the right side of the pillow cover at this point -- that keeps the opening on the outside of the finished cover.

Once I had stitched the seams on my sewing machine, I clean finished the edges with my serger to eliminate raveling. 

Once the casings were attached, I turned the entire cover right side out and pressed the seams and edges. 

I plunged into the ribbon stash and found a reel of 1/4" pink satin ribbon -- yea!!  I don't have to leave the house!! 

Once I knew the width of the ribbon, I stitched along the folded edge of the casing to make a channel to thread the ribbon through.

I found my Purple Thang (another yea!!) and threaded the ribbon through each casing.  Time to insert the pillow form!!

But first, I must break the law (-; and cut off the tag!!  LOL!!!

And into the cover the form begins to go!

I drew up the ribbon and IT WORKED!!

There's one for Ben, too.   I used the 5" tall letters for his rectangular pillow and the 3 3/4" ones for Grace's small bolster. 

That's the last of this fishing flies fabric -- Ben is showing signs of enjoying fishing and I think he'll like this "guy" fabric. 

I'm so grateful to Sherry for sharing her idea with me.  As I was posing the finished pillows on the patio chair, I decided to recover my little porch pillows for summer with some of the letters and my fruit and veggie prints -- K is for kale, B is for banana . . .

 

The pattern is available on my website -- HERE -- and for the rest of April, I'll offer FREE shipping when you order your own copy!!

 

Mary Huey

www.maryhueyquilts.com