Putting Together a Pillow

I decided to make the little HST quilt into a pillow for my mother.  I had the front all put together and wanted more than a plain back.  So I started working on a Side B.

When I first put together my selvedge string block pattern, it was for a 6-inch block.  I made four of them before switching to an 8-inch block design.  That was good for a center, but I needed to stretch it to 16 inches.  What to do for a border?  Well, I happened to have a bunch of blue and red HST from the braid quilt.  I liked the red ones best with this center.  It's kind of an odd effect.  Hey... it's the B-side.  I decided to roll with it.


And since it was the non-feature side, I decided to practice quilting it with feathers.  My feathers, like pebbles, need some work.  Not bad, though.  I planned to freemotion the whole thing but it didn't feel right over the diamonds.  So I tried out my new hopping ruler foot.  Oh!  I like this foot!  It hung up on only the thickest of seams.  Plus it didn't jump over the ruler.  I hemmed and hawed over buying it - I'm glad I got it.


Then I quilted the front.  The pieces were so tiny!  But I didn't want to simply stitch in the ditch, so I quilted in the white space.  The overall effect was pretty cool - itty bitty designs in the white diamonds and the colored diamonds all puffed out.


The quilting really showed up on the back.  I stitched whatever came to mind and repeated some of the patterns as I got closer to the edges.  Muscle memory came back for some of designs - but I need more practice.



The HST side shrunk slightly more than the B-side.  Both pieces remained mostly square.  I straightened the edges and sewed them together.  Once it was stuffed any differences in size (and not hitting the points along the edge) disappeared.  I'm quite pleased with the result.  I'm sure my mother will be, too!

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Love Laugh Quilt - Monday Making