Kaffe Hexie Pillow Finish

In the spring, I created this neck roll pillow as a teaching sample for an introductory EPP workshop using a random assortment of Kaffe prints on an architectural background print.

There were leftover hexies, all basted and ready to play so when I began to redecorate my living room this summer, I decided to finish them into another neck roll pillow.

 That pillow shape is very comfortable for resting my left arm when I'm stitching on the couch plus it looks nice!

I took the hexies along on a late summer trip and pieced them into this motif.

I decided the motif I created would not fit on a neckroll pillow form but that was okay because I found a 14" by 28" rectangle form which I liked!

That meant the quilted cover was not large enough or the right shape but I have lots of fabric.

A couple days of "intuitive" auditioning and I was ready to finish the pillow cover!

I added fabric (and batting and backing) to both sides, then more to the top and bottom to make a quilted piece large enough to cover the pillow.

While this isn't a route I would encourage for making a pillow cover, I wanted to share how I enlarged this piece after it was quilted.  My process is an adaptation of techniques gleaned from Marti Michell's book, Machine Quilting in Sections.

I began by adding more backing fabric -- in this photo, I've pushed the top layer and batting to the left to stitch it in place.  I pressed the backing away from the finished section pressing the seam towards the new piece of backing.

In this photo, I'm adding batting. I've trimmed the edges of batting straight with a rotary cutter and butted them together.  This "butted seam" is to the right of the backing seam about 1/2" to minimize bulk and I used my walking foot with a wide, long zigzag to stitch the batting edges together.  The stitching goes through the backing fabric which wouldn't work on a quilt but is fine for a pillow.  If I were doing this on a quilt, I would use a fusible batting tape to join the seam.

Finally I added the "border" fabric to the sandwich to expand the size of the top.  Notice that this seam is to the left of the batting seam.  I've learned through trial and error that having the three seams -- backing, batting, and top -- staggered rather than piled on top of each other makes a better finish.

I quilted the side border sections.

And repeated the process to add top and bottom borders. 

After these were quilted, I was ready to finish the pillow cover. 

At this point, my completed cover is 29" square. 

I used my serger to finish all four sides of the piece. 

Then I inserted a 22" zipper in the back seam just the way I learned to do it in a dress 50 years ago.  I stitched the quilted piece into a tube from end to end, switching to a basting stitch for the section where the zipper will fit and then back to a standard stitch length. 

At this point, I realized I was taking the awkward route -- stitching the zipper in place inside a tube was a bit of challenge. 

After the zipper was in place, I took out the basting stitches and pulled the zipper open before centering the zipper on the back side of the pillow cover and stitching the ends of the tube closed.

 

Happily, it worked!!  And now I have two new pillows for the couch!  There is third piece in this set that is still in progress -- check out my fourth quarter Finish Along list HERE.  It too won't be what it was intended to be and I'll share that with you next week!

I made another apple cake, too!  It will be donated to the refreshment table at a club meeting tomorrow evening.  I tried reducing the oil to 3/4 cup and used only 1 1/2 cups of sliced apples, but added 1/2 cup of fresh cranberries.  It's nice!!

If you missed the recipe last week, you can find it HERE.  If you copied the recipe last week, be advised that I left out "1 teaspoon of baking soda" -- it's corrected in the blog post but be sure to add it or you'll be irritated with me and my recipe!!

Tomorrow I'm committed to doing some "good deed" stitching -- very utilitarian and not at all interesting.  Vinyl covers to hold upholstery foam in place on some metal poles in my church's fellowship hall.  I hope it goes smoothly and doesn't take more than the day!!

I hope your week is off to a good start!!

Mary

Hexie Pillow Finish!

Do you wander around Instagram? 

I do because it is loaded with inspiration. 

Last week while making that cute Jelly Clip purse for an upcoming workshop sample, an idea drifted into my head for another EPP project sample using a slightly larger hexagon (1 1/4").

My head is currently swimming with dozens of images from Australian quiltmakers whose fabric style I've dubbed "Aussie Bohemian" -- it's fresh and exciting to me.  One thing I've learned in the past 40 years of quilt making is learning to work in a new fabric style takes practice so I'm experimenting with fabric I already own in hopes that I'll absorb some of the essence of this style's spontaneity and whimsy.  Once I accomplish that, my fabric shopping will shift to build up more flexibility.  I learn more via that "trial and error" route than I do buying kits with all the "right" fabrics.

A stack of Kaffe Fassett charms provided a quick starting point and I spent an afternoon cutting and basting my hexagons.  I did all my calculation for 1" hexagons and . . . . . 

then used 1 1/4" papers.

That's what happens when I get too excited. 

So too many hexies, but in the end it was fine as I had more flexibility in my design.   

I pulled out most of the cool color pieces -- another project?

My goals were not to exert too much control over the fabric arrangement (there is that mostly yellow hexie flower near the middle) and to use an edgy (for me) background fabric. 

It was fun to realize how many background options I owned!

In the end, I settled on this soft graphic print.

Once the band of hexies was appliqued in place, I spent a hot and happy afternoon with this box of silk embroidery threads my mother brought to me many years ago quilting the hexies.

Some of the thread choices contrast with the fabric and some blend into them.

I planned to machine quilt the background with simple straight lines and in preparing to do that realized that my band has gone slightly askew during the applique process. 

 It wasn't perfectly aligned with the "grain of the print". 

 Arrrgh?!? 

So doing straight lines on both sides wasn't going to work because the background fabric "insisted" on straight aligned stitching!!

It took a few hours but I finally realized that using zigzag lines to echo the opposite edge of the band would camouflaged it perfectly.  Once again, a mistake leads to a creative solution and a discovery!!

The finished product is a neck roll pillow and by extreme good luck, I was able to create a band that would connect continuously around the pillow. 

This isn't really a tutorial, more of a recounting of what I did -- it took a couple days to think through things and come up with a way to achieve it.  There was quite a bit of measuring and testing as I proceeded.

The fuchsia/orange and the upper half of the green hexagons are not appliqued in place yet.  After quilting, I trimmed the background, batting, and backing to allow a 1/2" seam allowance as seen here.  More seam than usual just in case it's needed!

The top edge (in this picture) of the center green hexagon will join to the other end of the band right on top of the seam needed to create the tube for the pillow, so I stair-stepped the hexagons at both ends because I "felt" it would be easier to merge them after the background was seamed.

I also trimmed the batting out of the seam and used fusible batting tape to attach it to the backing fabric so the seam would be less bulky.  This is a great idea from Marti Michell who sells the tape in 1" and 2" widths.  I explained how I use it in THIS TUTORIAL.

I was nervous about stitching that seam in the backing so I machine basted it first.  All my fussing paid off, the hexies aligned perfectly!  Now to applique everything in place and hand quilt the remaining hexies at the joining seam.

I lifted my sewing machine up to access the free arm easily and machine quilted around the tube with  lines echoing the edge of the hexie band.

Right side.

Wrong side.

I used my tutorial from last spring on making a neck roll pillow -- boy, am I glad that I wrote that out, it came in handy!!  It's HERE.  And what fun to find a twill tape tie from a fabric bundle in my ribbon stash -- the colors and the twill tape are perfect!

It's hard to send it off to the shop, but it will only be gone for six weeks.

And those left over hexies won't go to waste!  How about this?

Or maybe this? 

So what is the next thing I'm going to do? 

Why order a fat eighth assortment of new Kaffe Fassett fabrics that SHABBY QUILTS brought to my attention in an e-mail this morning!!

And then I better layer up a quilt and quit procrastinating all the FMQ staring me in the face!

Have a good week!

Mary Huey

P.S.  The Orlando Modern Quilt Guild has put out a call for help making heart blocks and quilts to cover survivors and victims' families of the massacre on Sunday.  If you are so inclined, follow this link to the blogpost with information and a link to a simple pieced block.

Linking up today over at the monthly scrappy SCRAPTASTIC!

I documented how I finished this style of pillow last spring while making gifts for my grandchildren -- click HERE to revisit it!

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!