Petal Pillow / Cushion Cubed

Before I went to London for the Quilt Bee meet up I knew I wanted to make something to say ‘thanks’ to the lovely Jen for hosting AND for making me not one, but two pants bags!!

I love a good cushion and had an idea I’d scribbled down on some paper that I thought would be interesting to try. So I set about trying to figure out quite how it would all go together.

I grabbed as many pink and purple (I had the inkling Jen likes pink) fabrics as I could lay my hands on and set about piecing some squares within squares. The idea being that I would make three interlocking squares to go across the cushion.

It wasn’t quite as easy as I expected, but got a lot better once I realised that I couldn’t just make the squares and put them together. There needed to be some planning…….and puzzling.

I finished the top, basted and decided that I didn’t want to go with my natural instinct to straight line quilt it. Instead I was going to try a bit of FMQ as I thought Jen would appreciate that more.

Not something I do very often and not something I know much about!!

To start off I opted for flowers within the blocks, I love the chrysthanthemums (thank you spell check!) so had a go at those first with pale pink. The thing is the pink didn’t quite cut it. Although I had wanted a subtle look, it just didn’t look great so I then tried the risky approach of adding darker petals around the lighter flower.

This went ok, which was lucky!

From there I really didn’t know where to go. It didn’t look right to stick with the flowers as the rest looked a bit bare.

I knew that I could probably spend weeks contemplating the sprial vs the squiggle, the pebble vs the loop and still not get any closer to making a decision. So I just repeated the petal pattern around the squares until it felt right to stop. You may have seen this process on my instagram.

After that I wanted something to break it up a bit but repeat the shape so I used a lighter thread to quilt the lines as you can see here…..

Then I went for a little super small squiggling which I love. I hadn’t tried it this teeny before, but it’s so fun to do and feels lovely!

I added some zig zaggy bias binding and pink elephants on the back and away we go.

It is now in its new home, soon to be moving a little nearer to its place of origin…. I hope it will be happy!!

 Cushion Stats

Pattern: I made it up

Fabrics

• Front: Scrappy – out to sea, briar rose etc
• Background: Metro Living Circles – Robert Kaufman
• Binding: Ziggy – Timeless Treasures
• Back: Elephants – not sure they were one of my first fabric buys

Quilting: FMQ by Me using Aurifil 40wt!

Size:   Around 20″ x 20″ probably. I forgot to measure, but BIG!!

 

Linking up with A Lovely Year of Finishes

And Crazy Mom Quilts!

A Lovely Year of Finishes – September

Before I get started on the finishes I really must say a couple of big thank yous for some lovely surprises this month.

First, this great bag that Jen aka Glinda Quilts made for my little girl. Isn’t it gorgeous? I happened to mention she liked one of the fabrics and in super fast time the bag was waiting for me my daughter complete with said fabric.

This was another hit with little O and as she’s just started dance classes it’s perfect for her kit. So thanks very much Jen!

Then, on top of this, today I checked my emails to find that…..shock of all shocks….I’d won a giveaway! Seriously I have never won anything in my life, but thanks to the lovely Teje @ Nero’s Post and Patch that’s changed…yipee!

I now have $20 to spend at Pink Chalk Fabrics which makes me VERY happy….good times!!

(Plus if you haven’t seen Teje’s Forest quilt you really should check it out, it’s beautiful).

Annnd *deep breath* keep an eye on my blog over the next week because I will be hosting my very own giveaway to celebrate reaching 100+ followers.

A Lovely Year of Finishes – July

So it’s that time again…let’s see what I achieved this month…

Well there was this Wiksten Tank

Modern Mini Quilt Challenge!

Amazingly I’ve decided to enter something in the mini quilt contest over at Ellison Lane.

Now my entry isn’t great, I’m aware of that, but my choice is limited and this one fits the bill best, so I’m entering this baby:

Modern Quilting Cushion – Constructivist Stylee

This post is a bit late, in fact so was the cushion. It was intended as a valentine’s present for my boyfriend but he had to make do with a card instead.  In the end it was only a week late so he can’t really complain I’ve got a cardi that’s been waiting 2 years to be finished and I only need to restitch about two inches of the collar…how bad is that?!

Fabric for cushion.

Before Christmas I had hardly sewn a thing in my life so I decided to start my sewing practice with cushions. Cushions are small, flat, square and to my mind shouldn’t be that hard. Sadly that’s not the case and something still manages to go wrong, but hey I persevere and they’re getting better.  I’ve made a few recently, both patchwork and quilted, and have been looking for opportunties to make more hence the valentine’s cushion.