I’m late posting this, due to blogger’s issues yesterday (i'm crossing my fingers that this post won't disappear, and that tuesday's will come back...) but I was late finishing it anyway! This week’s Iron Craft Challenge was the Spring Contest, and the deadline was open until 8pm EST on Thursday – I uploaded my pictures about 30 minutes from the deadline. Cutting it close! I had the front and back all pieced together, and then i decided that i hated it, unpicked it all, and sewed it back together.
I’ve been planning this project for awhile, so Iron Craft was the perfect motivator. What’s more spring-like than bright yellow linen?
My sister got the linen piece for me at a “stitch and swap”, because she knows how much I love coloured linen. I don’t know the full fabric content, but it’s lovely. It had been torn, and therefore the edges were really wavy, and for the life of me I couldn’t press them out, so I used Best Press, which is a pretty magical product! (it’s like starch, but better)
The yellow is the perfect shade to use with the second half of my Kate Spain “Central Park” charm pack. (I haven’t posted the project that I made with the first half, but I will soon!!) I had some orange linen, but it wasn’t really the right shade, so I was really happy when she finally remembered to give it to me.
I started out sewing strips of the linen onto the charm squares, and then cut them down into smaller blocks. I laid them out and sewed them together….. and it looked so boring. Why did I bother doing the fancy sashing if I was just going to do a simple layout like that?
So I started unpicking. And I decided to play around with the layout in photoshop before I sewed anything together again!
I took some photos of the blocks, and chose the clearest one of each fabric. Then I rotated them around, playing with the layout until I came up with this one. It's interesting how the prints and the geometric design that they create are prominent here, but in the actual pillow, the sashing and the cross/plus signs that it creates is most prominent. I think if I’d added yellow sashing around the entire piece, it might have changed that because once I stuffed the pillow, the top and bottom blocks kind of disappeared.
(the prints used are, from left to right, Esplanade in Sunshine, Seneca in Metro, Trefoil in Sunshine, Carousel in Sunshine, Cherry Hill in Metro, and Bridle Path in Metro)
The backing is orange kona cotton, because I’d run out of linen (the fabric I’d cut for the pieced back was too small, the new design was bigger) I put a layer of quilt batting against it, but didn't actually quilt it, I just wanted to ensure that the back was smooth after I filled the pillow with batting.
I did quilt the front though, with a fairly thin cotton batting. I haven’t washed the pillow yet, but I think it’s gonna “scrunch” up nicely!
I wanted the prints to be the focus (see above on how I failed with that!), so I only quilted on the linen, around the chain created by the prints.
These aren’t my usual colours at all, but I really love how it turned out! I’m really excited about using this basic pattern for larger projects. I haven’t decided on a design for the Kona Charm Pack challenge yet, so this might be in the running.
However, because it’s not my usual colours, I won’t really use it in my house….. Maybe it’s better suited to yours? Sew Mama Sew is facilitating their Annual May Giveaway day on the 23rd, so you might wanna check back here around then!
(Hows that for a hint? Subtle, huh?)
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