Two New Pillows

I was very excited to finish up a couple of couch pillows over the weekend. The first one replaces one I made a very long time ago, of similar design (from Kaffe Fasset's original Glorious Patchwork book), which had been reduced to shreds after years of wear and pillow fights. The original pillow was done with the paper piece method, which is kind of tedious. I decided to try stitching the strips for this one directly to squares of batting. I didn't really think about how that would work when I joined the squares together (when I mentioned it to the quilt store lady, hoping she'd have some tips, she just looked at me with great pity), but I forged ahead. It came out a tiny bit lumpy at the seams, but barely noticeable.

I started it about the time I got the new couch (you can see the old pillow, in very faded shades of yellow on the old couch in that post), but I got distracted by other projects and summer and stuff and only finally sat down and got it done over the last couple of weeks. The backing is my favorite brown Kaffe Fasset Roman glass design (which I also used in the TV cabinet). I also quilted the back right to batting (hoping the extra layer makes it more durable) and I put a zipper right down the middle to keep it easy.

I finished the first pillow up on Saturday and made the second one on Sunday. While I was working on it, E asked me if I wanted to play a game and I said, "When I finish this," and he said, "How long will it take you?" and I said, "Half an hour," and he said, "How come the other one took you three [sic] months and this one will only take half an hour?" Good question! Because it's a much simpler design. And I just really want to get it over and done with.

I bought the fabric for this one on a trip to the fabric store while my mom was visiting. If I count back through the times my parents have come to Maine, that puts this fabric purchase at about five years ago. Which means this pillow cover took me five years and a half hour, give or take.

Again I sewed the pieces directly to batting, in a sort of mega-wide log cabin design. The down side of rushing through a project as I did with this one, is that it opens one up for a lot of mistakes--I forgot to include seam allowance when I cut the batting (I went ahead using it anyway, hoping that what I read in one of the many zipper tutorials I looked up is true--that a pillow looks better if the cover is slightly smaller than the insert), on one side the design came out off-center, and I didn't catch the fabric in the seam in one place on one of the center squares. I didn't notice this until after I was nearly done and there was no way I was going to rip out all the seams to fix it. I'm not sure what I'll do to keep it from fraying in that spot (am tempted to just stick on a random patch).

So, the pillows don't really match each other, or the other two pillows I already made for the couch, or even the couch for that matter (whose wine-colored cover clashes horribly with the orange walls and the orange butterfly curtains). But I'm pleased with them. And the boys? Less than a minute after I installed the first pillow in its spot on the couch, Z and M started a pillow fight with it, and then a few hours later, C laid on top of it on the floor, where we were playing a game. So, I guess they didn't quite appreciate the aesthetics, but the found them useful.