Magic Parade Letter A Hexie Pillow

As much as this quilting grandma wants to make a quilt for every occasion there ever is for her granddaughter, I think that eventually said granddaughter might not need quite that many quilts. So, I was on a mission to create something else. This project magically evolved and became a very special gift for my granddaughter.

The first piece of magic occurred when I needed just a few more dollars in my online shopping cart to receive free shipping. I selected a mini charm pack of Big Sky, a Moda collection by Annie Brady. Mini charm packs are perfect for sampling a fabric collection and I really loved both the color and design of this collection. Since I had no plan for these, and had been looking for some sort of hexie project, that is what I did with these.

The second piece of magic happened when I won fabric from Pink Door Fabrics as part of the Blogger's Quilt Festival. There was one piece that was perfect for Amelia as her first birthday party was unicorn themed. It was the double border print for Magical Parade by Sarah Jane for Michael Miller. The colors worked very nicely with the Big Sky collection.

As the stack of hexie's grew, I spent time arranging and rearranging, with no idea what they would become. Then, while shuffling them around on a visit to my mom's house, I thought, hey, I wonder if I could make a letter A with these?

That is when the idea to turn them into a big pillow occurred. I wasn't sure of the best technique to set and quilt hexies onto a quilt top, but I knew that I did not want to hand sew them together. I tried pinning them to the background fabric but could not get them to line up consistently. I tried spray basting them, but that was not strong enough to hold them. Finally, I did hand stitch them together, but only with very wide stitches. I also spray basted them to the background fabric and added a few pins around the perimeter. Then I quilted straight lines from point to point in all directions on the hexies. I'm sure there are better techniques for this but it got the job done.

Once the hexies were in place, it was time for some quilting fun on the rest of the project. There is small stippling around each of the parade characters which makes them stand out and look more dimensional. The characters on this fabric ended up being Amelia's favorite part of the pillow. She kept pointing to and touching all the faces. The rest of the background is quilted with whimsical swirls. The gray border on the bottom was added simply to make sure the parade did not disappear at the very bottom edge of the pillow.

The binding is a rich gold solid that picks up all the accents in both the hexies and the parade. From the crown to the lettering on the flag, to the stars on the wizard's costume, touches of gold are everywhere.

The pillow is made in an envelope style so that the form can be taken in and out easily and the cover can be washed as often as needed. While there is less quilting on the pillow back, the design is just as much fun as the pillow front.

As you would expect from any young child, she enjoyed the large gift bag this was delivered in as much or more than the pillow itself. The pillow form is 26 inches square. My hope is this pillow will see itself through many hours of book reading, movie watching, and cuddling.

Modern Pheasant Pillow

Back in October I visited my daughter and her family for a few days. While I was there I noticed a pheasant themed calendar on the wall. I asked about it and learned that my son-in-law is a fan of pheasants. I had been hoping for some gift giving inspiration while I was there, so that was exactly the kind of thing I needed to know.

When I went looking for pheasant quilty things, I primarly found panels and hunting motifs. That is not what I wanted. I wanted a modern pheasant. There was one picture that worked nicely. I blew it up and traced all the parts.

This is not my usual kind of project but I enjoyed searching for the right colors and fabrics.

I was really nervous about fusing all these tiny parts so I laid him out carefully on top of the traced image to make sure I was happy with the shapes and placement. I also realized that I did not have a suitable background fabric. A quick online fabric order took care of that.

I ordered two different colors of Grunge fabric, a lighter and a darker. I settled on the darker fabric. If this pillow ends up on their sofa, it is a dark gray, and this choice should work better with their other decor.

I matched thread as best I could to each section of the pheasant and free motion stitched around all the parts to make sure they would stay securely on the pillow.

Then it was time for quilting. I used a layer of batting and a thin white batiste on the back. I wanted the pheasant to look like he is standing on the ground so I chose a horizon line and stitched horizontal lines for the ground. A large meander (which always makes me think of clouds) is quilted above the horizon line.

The backing is envelope style with an extra fabric added for interest. I like quilting the back of pillows, too, to give them more body. I layered all the pieces together and then bound it like a regular quilt. It was a little bit challenging to get through the thickness where the backing top and bottom overlap, but it worked out just fine.

I don't make enough pillows to be confident with the pillow form size and the pillow. I don't like them overstuffed but I don't want them too floppy either. The pillow itself is 18 inches when laid flat. I used a 16 inch pillow form to fill it. I think it works. Oh, how I have wanted to share progress with this project on Instagram, but they frequently look at Instagram, so it will have to stay right here in blog land for now.

Challenge Accepted - A Free Motion Pumpkin Pillow

There is a challenge going on over at Quilt Shop Gal involving pumpkins, pillows, and free motion quilting. Of course I had to join in on the fun. I discovered this challenge by way of Lori Kennedy of The Inbox Jaunt. She contributed to the challenge by writing a tutorial for the project. And since I'm already enrolled in her Divide and Conquer class over at Craftsy, I couldn't resist the opportunity to learn even more. 

The first step is to draw out your ideas. As you can see, I'm quite sketchy about this stage. A few scribbles and I'm ready to sew.

Once I had a concept of what I wanted to do, I used a blue water soluble pen and marked my fabric.

I spent a lot of time on Lori's blog, browsing through all of her tutorials. I think choosing which designs to use took longer than the actual quilting. I learned a few lessons along the way with this project. The first is to not choose such busy fabric. I just love this picture, but guess what. This is from the back. The nice, plain, solid back.

The spider web looks cool. Can you see the spider on the left side?

The dragonfly turned out good. It doesn't matter what season it is. You know I have to have a dragonfly somewhere on almost every project.

The details show up so nicely on the BACK!

The front... well, the front is a little busy.

It's not horrible. It's simply a lesson learned. I suppose it partially comes from the concept that busy fabric hides quilting mistakes but I really did think it was plain enough when I chose it. Here's the dragonfly.

Once the quilting was completed, it was squared up, layered and bound just like a regular quilt. The only difference is the back is two pieces that overlap so that a pillow form can be stuffed inside.

I liked it a little better once it became a pillow. And I was very pleased with my quilting. One of the things Lori said in her tutorial is that you wouldn't want to stop at just one. And she might be right. This project took about three hours from start to finish. I'm hoping to find a few free hours lurking in my weekend. We will see.

Linking to Quilt Shop Gal's October Free Motion Quilting Challenge and Work in Progress Wednesday at Freshly Pieced. Also linking up to Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.

Other posts with free motion quilting
A Few Quilted Flowers
Collaborative Quilt for a Teacher
Believe Circle Quilt Finish

Tutorial - Put A Letter On It

Anytime I share a project that includes words or letters, the first question I am asked is, "Where did you get those letters?"
 

There are lots of great sources for fonts and letters, but often, the answer is even easier than that. For the sewing machine cover I recently made,

I knew I wanted clean, simple letters. Basic word processing software often has the answer. I use Microsoft Word and have a decent number of fonts to choose from within that program. I chose the Arial font for the letters s-e-w. To experiment with the size of the letters, choose different font sizes. This example page shows the Arial font in 12, 36, 72, 150, and 300. The pull down menu in Microsoft Word for the font size only goes up to 72, but you can also enter a number bigger than that to make them even larger. Once there are some good test sizes on the page, print it.

And it's okay to go so big that only one letter fits on a page. They are going to be cut apart anyway. Now, it's time to play. You can cut the letters apart and pin or lay them on your project. Once you're happy with the size of the letters, then it's time to transfer them to your fabric.

What if you want something a little fancier than the fonts available on your word processor? Then it's time to go exploring. My favorite site for fonts is dafont.com. It offers a huge selection of fonts and most of them are free. I also like that it tells you what you are allowed to do with the font once it is downloaded. Most of them are free for personal use, which is perfect for anything you are making for yourself or as a gift. If you are making something that might later be sold or developed into a commercial pattern, make sure that the font is free for commercial use. I am a strong believer in respecting the copyright of all creative things, including fonts.

Not all fonts translate well to fabric so make sure that the letters are thick enough to hold up on fabric, like this

or this

This next one is too fine and would be a huge challenge to cut out of fabric. It would be great to trace in pen or paint, but would not work for fabric on fabric.

With a little interpretation, this one could be really cute...

Can you tell I have Valentine's Day on the brain? Plenty of love for all, even fonts.

Once the font is selected and the size is chosen, it's time to put it on fabric.

To do this, you need two-sided fusible webbing. There are many different brands out there, some good, some not so good. Your local quilt shop can help you make a good choice. In my experience, whatever product you use to learn this technique, it is the one that becomes a favorite. My favorite product is Steam-A-Seam 2. It comes in two weights, and while both work just fine for this application, I prefer the Light version. It comes in packages and by the yard from a roll.

Because the fusible goes on the back of the fabric, the letters must be traced in reverse. To do that, turn the printed page of letters over and use a sharpie to trace the letters. This makes them easier to see when they are traced onto the fusible web. I only traced around one of the letter Os because I can reuse the first one as I'm tracing.

Next, decide which side of the fusible web to write on. To do this, pull apart a corner of your fusible. One paper will pull away clean and one will pull away with sticky stuff on it. Don't pull the paper all the way off yet. This is just a way to figure out which side to write on. Write on the paper that has the sticky stuff.

Now, trace your letters. I use a mechanical pencil for this. The lead is fine and it's easy to correct any mistakes. The letters can be traced close together. They don't have to be spaced as they will be on your project.

Once everything is traced, pull the papers apart. The blank page should pull away clean and can be thrown away. Place the sticky part on the wrong side of your fabric and press it according to the manufacturers instructions for your product.

Since this is a two layered font, I also need to trace, fuse, and cut out hearts.

Before committing to ironing everything down on your project, it's a good idea to do a dry run. In this example I left the paper on the back of each piece, but if I had lots of little pieces, I would pull the paper off and position it on the background. It isn't going to permanently stick until it is ironed.

Once it all looks good, press it down, again following the instructions that come with your fusible product.

At this point, there are several options for finishing. Some of that decision depends on how the finished product will be used. Here are some choices:

• Stitch around all the edges using a zig-zag, blanket, or other decorative stitch. This choice will keep your raw edges from getting ragged, especially if the project will be washed regularly
• Straight stitch just inside the raw edge of each fused piece. This option will hold everything in place for projects that will be washed but may result in the edges getting a little ragged over time. Sometimes that is the desired result.
• Let the quilting serve as the stitches to anchor the pieces. If the pieces are going to be quilted over anyway, this can be enough to secure the letters
• Do not add any stitching. This works for projects that are decorative and won't be handled or washed.

This project is going to become a decorative pillow in my studio so no additional stitching will be added to the fused pieces. Of course, the two-sided fusible web can be used for anything you want to raw edge applique on a project. Just keep in mind...if your project needs to say something, put a letter on it!