Wild & Free Pillows {a finished project}

My oldest daughter was lucky enough to have a student teacher for the first part of the school year.  What better way to say thank you than matching pillows for her teachers?

I used the new line of fabric Wild & Free by Maureen Cracknell (+ a few scraps).  I always thought the arrows would be my favorite print from the line, but once I saw it in person, Sun Tracks was clearly my fave!  I bought extra after getting my preordered fat quarter bundle, and used it for the backs of these pillows.

I also quilted each pillow differently.  For one I did cross-hatching, simply for the reason that the spool of thread on my machine was nearly out and I thought maybe I could eke out an entire quilted pillow from it (I couldn’t). 

There is just something about straight lines that makes my heart swoon when I see them on pillows! 

Quilting always seems to show up better on the back.

Then I quilted the other with a free motion pattern so they were the same but still different.  Also I was a bit tired from all the straight lines.  FMQ is so fast!

The quilting pattern blends in a lot of with all the different fabrics on the front.

The teachers liked the pillows and I got a message from one later that night informing me her 16 year old daughter already claimed it for her bedroom. 

I promised that this would be the end of pillows for a while, but I was wrong.  I already started another with the leftovers from this project and some scraps that have already overtaken my sewing room and are threatening to take over my house…

Have a wonderful weekend!  Linking up with Fort Worth Fabric Studio and Crazy Mom Quilts.

Let the gift giving begin! {a finished pillow}

Last week I received a package of fabric from Hawthorne Threads from a giveaway I won.  In addition to the fabric prize, the lovely people there sent me samples of two of their in-house lines of fabric, Fair Isle and Bengal.  The little pieces of Fair Isle were just begging to be made into a pillow!

The fabric features cuddly polar bears and the cutest smiling narwhals!

My favorite print is the sleds.  The color is more peachy than pink, not normally a color I’d be drawn to.  But I love the combination of blues, peach, and grays.  The cool palette made me think this pillow would look fantastic on my friend’s white leather couch.

Apparently her cat, Prince (who has his own Instagram account) liked the pillow too!  Speaking of Instagram, I finally joined and you can find me as @beacraftygirl.

I also tried something new making this pillow.  Instead of binding it, I used my serger so there are no raw edges.  Maybe no binding gives it a more modern look?  Honestly, I was just looking to finish it quickly, but threading the serger after several months of no use proved to be more time consuming than making and attaching binding!

Most Christmases I give handmade gifts, but I am never organized enough to complete a project with enough time to photograph and blog about it.  Hopefullly 2014 will be different!

Last week I also received my Wild & Free and Priory Square preordered fabric.  I love it so much I cut into it the very next day, and then I ordered more of each line because I never want to run out.  Don’t deny it…I know some of you probably do the same thing!!!!