A pillow made with love ❤️

My 9 year old son, little A, wanted to make something special for his sister, Miss V, for Christmas. He knows, she loves things he made himself, and she loves pillows. 

So he struggled with scraps, with the sewing machine....and with himself too.

But look at this:

 

He made it all by himself. 

I am so proud of him. 

PS: she loves her pillow! 

Pillows

I made these pillows for my nieces for Christmas 

 

I like the scrappiness. And circles are always nice 😉

 

They were well received, that makes me a happy quilter! 

Tumbling blocks pillows - a birthday present

I have always liked the tumbling blocks pattern - also in fabric.

I had this idea of making one-color tumbling blocks pillows, that they would look good together.

So I started out with yellow

See? No Y-seams! That makes this sooooo much easier.

I finished the yellow pillow 

...and started making a green in the same way

I chose some very colorful fish-stamp fabric for the back

And there you go! 2 tumbling block/fish stamp pillows done:

They were a present for a December birthday and they were well recieved - I do think that the recipient has more than enough pillows now, so if I want a bunch of these in different colors, I may have to make them for myself :-)

Some Christmas sewing

My daughter loves unicorns. She has been looking at a unicorn quilt block pattern since forever, saying things like "ooooh look at this - but....that's too difficult for you to sew, isn't it?"

So naturally, I had to get the pattern. I did, and it sat around in my to-do list forever. Because it looked so intimidating. But I did finish this pillow for her in time for Christmas - and she loves it! 

Pattern by Robyniepatterns

Crazy busy June

This month is busy. I started a new job June 1st (I love it - more about that later)

My sister got married June 4th, it was a very special day. We celebrated with them all day, and it was such a special day. 

I had made them pillowcases for their birthdays, and that was what they wished for as thair wedding present. More pillows. And wine. A combination that makes sense - you want to be comfy while drinking wine, right?!

I wanted to make them different designs, so I started out with a dresden:

I quilted it with a 1'' grid - I really do not have the patience for that...

I also made a kaleidoscope. I still want to make a quilt with this block. I just love it!

I am not sure what the name of this block is, but it is made from 9-patches that are cut op into triangles and sewn back together:

 I like the quilting on the 4-patch pillow:

Here you can see it from the back. Elizabeth Hartman has a great tute for this dogwood quilting.

And here they are, all together:

I am happy with how they turned out. And I think my sister is too :-)

A panda pillow...

My daugther loves pillows, and pandas (well....and unicorns and rainbows too, just to be fair!)

So when I saw this photo print in a local fabric store, I knew I had to buy one. It's the quickest pillow I have ever made.

The front is just the panel as is...and I made the back from 2 cute prints. One of them had to be a panda-print of course

She loves it, and I have all sorts of plans for pillows to make for both my kids. Because they really like them - and maybe that means that some of all the softies can move to other homes??

Star Wars x-wing pillow for my youngest

A while ago, I tested a Krity Lea/Quietplay pattern for a 12.5'' x-wing block. The pattern is great btw, you can see my post here.

Anyway, I wanted to use the block, so I added some borders

The Star Wars print seemed perfect :-)

Quilted it and added a back (and a zipper, pillows need zippers!)

...and here's the finished pillow! My son is happy, and it matches his Star Wars quilt!

Pink floor cushion for Miss V

Ever since she saw the floor cushion I made for A for his birthday (in March....), Miss V has asked me, to make one for her. I could choose the pattern - as long as I made it in pink fabrics :-)

So....I chose HSTs, and this layout:

This should be fairly simple, but I managed to sew every HST together the wrong way. Lots of unpicking... Fot the other side, I used the leftover HSTs and some strips - didn't need to repeat the seam ripping. I have had my share of doing that for a while now!

Moving on to basting - and cofee to keep my spirits up :-) But this is the fun part! Well....not so much the basting, but the quilting.

Here it is, all done: (do you see the star?)

I took this picture this afternoon. This makes me happy, and this is why I made the cushions in the first place. The kiddos love to sit on the floor, with their toys, puzzles games.... Our floors are cold hardwood floors, so they need a soft cushion!

Now I need to make one for me, and then we are all set for playing board games on the floor :-)

My 11 year old hair stylist and an early birthday present

Next Monday is my sons 9th birthday, I made him a floor cushion - and I just couldn't wait, so I gave it to him today! 

I pieced blue strips from my bigger scraps, and quilted with a loopy pattern. The pillow is 65 cm square, so it is big enough for him to sit on, while playing games or watching tv - or building LEGOs or whatever else he does. 

My feet are in the pictures for scale - because you all know how big my feet are, right? :)

The pillow is fully lined, and with its really big zipper, it is easy to just throw this pillow case in the wash.

In other news, I really desperately needed a haircut. So I asked my daugther, if she would do it, she reluctantly agreed. Yesterday she cut 4-5 inches off the length, aaaaah. But, I really wanted bangs....so today, she cut those too. 

Yay. I am really happy with the result. And really proud of my very brave 11 year old hair stylist daugther!

Pillows for presents

I made these pillowcases for my mom. I gave her one already, and am giving her the other one for Mother's Day - thinking ahead! Yay!

This was one of the first things I made in a long time, so my quilting is quilt rusty, but they turned out ok, I think.

My mother liked it anyway - that's the most important thing.

I chose a solid grey for the back, and put in a zipper, so they are easy to throw in the wash.

I can't remember the name of the fabric line, it was a charm square pack I had in my stash.

Sewing presents and catching up

I bet you have heard this before, but in 2016 I am going to try to make as much from my stash as I can. I will need to buy stuff here and there, zippers, batting etc. But I really should stay away from getting more fabric for my stash.... Let's see how this goes :-)

I have been sewing a lot of presents - mostly catching up. I can't show them all, because they haven't been gifted yet. But I can show you these pillows:

I love these fabrics from Cotton + Steel

I know it's a simple design, but I really didn't want to draw attention away from the prints...

I also made this Sew Together Bag (pattern by SewDemented), I had the pattern for the longest time before finally putting on my brave pants and making one! 

Considering how much it holds, it really isn't that big when it's closed. 

It fits into a tote quite easily, and can be brought everywhere. Perfect for handstitching projects.

I am using it for my never-ending hexies project:

Now my kids want one each, they have started pulling fabrics.... 

Pillowcase

We have a number of pillows and cushions at our house - as I imagine we all do :)
Only, at my house these pillows are a very poor-looking bunch. When I finished the hexagon pillowcase for our floor cushion, I vowed to prettify all our pillows. And I still haven't done it.

But now I have made a start. I have made a new pillowcase for one of the pillows in our couch.

 

The fabrics are all Kona Cotton - 7 different colors :) The kaleidoscope blocks are 11'' square and I am so happy with it!
The orange and purple stand out a lot in the photo, not so much in real life. Funny how that happens!

I am not all done sharing pictures from Vienna, but that will have to wait for my next post.

Hey! I finished something!!

This is the finished floor cushion! Yipee! It's app. 28" square, just big enough for both kids to sit on -although Ask is certain it is his! I may have to make one more, to keep the peace :)

Also, I started quilting my 8two8 quilt. I am really happy to be doing some FMQ again. It's so relaxing :) I would like to be able to quilt grids, though....one day!

I won't be able to finish it this week, because this weekend my sister invited the whole family to Legoland!
Needless to say, we are all very excited about going :)
Viola wanted to make a present for my sister to say thank you, so today we made this handbag for her. Viola chose the pattern (I gave her 3 options) and the button, and I chose the fabrics. The outer fabric is from Marimekko sent to me by my friend Anne, and the lining is a Michael Miller print.

The pattern is Half-Moon Handbag from Keyka Lou Patterns, and it is really easy to follow. I made this bag in 2 hours :) Viola is filling it with drawings, necklaces "diamonds" and other treasures.
It should be loved :)

Quilted pillows

A very good friend of mine was celebrating her 30th birthday last night. I made her pillows, based on her favourite colors.

The pillows are 20" square, I bought the actual pillow at Ikea, and made the pillowcases to fit.
This is the first one I finished, and look...I quilted a grid!! First time ever! I am pretty excited about that, I love grid quilting, but I could never do it. I did find out, what a difference a walking foot makes. Lol.

The next top is kaleidoscope blocks. I think these are so fun to sew :) And not at all as difficult as they look...
I had some trouble deciding how to quilt this one, but finally figured I might as well just try out the design I really liked -nomatter how intimidating.

So this is what I quilted, the quilting shows up best on the back. The front of each pillow is made like a mini-quilt before I assembled the pillowcase.
This is how the kaleidoscopes look after quilting
The last pillow-front is a snowball-pattern.
These are 20" sq....each snowball is 5"sq....at some late hour I then figured out that meant I would need 25 snowballs....yep! I messed up the math again ;) I really need to decide on layouts at a decent hour!

Here is a picture of all 3 pillows
My friend loves them, and that makes me so happy!

I am incredibly behind on blog-reading. I have over a hundred unread posts in my reader, and I can't wait to come by and see what you have all been up to!