Joel Dewberry Pillow Set

I was very excited by how my bunny pillow worked out. I was eager to reuse this particular interlocking grid pattern from my Japanese Quilt Blocks book. Compared to the other patterns I'd tried from the book, this was probably the easiest/least time consuming, and I like it because it conveys the same complexity as the others visually, but with less effort. That is, I think only a quilter would realize this is a less complex pillow to complete than the others.

I decided to go back to this fabric that I already had in my stash, to make a companion pillow for the lumbar pillow and coasters I had made a couple of months ago.



Unlike the bunny fabric, however, the Sparrows (in Almond) fabric from the Joel Dewberry Aviary line is what's considered a "fussy" fabric - which in this context means a fabric that you have to cut and sew carefully to make select parts of the pattern appear where you want to them to. I have only used a fussy fabric once before, which was a large print Heather Bailey fabric for my "Spring Pillow for Fall," and in both of these cases, it definitely added planning and cutting time to the project.



I laid out the project in advance - I did want that middle bird to be off center, but for some reason didn't realize that it would be cut off because of seam allowance. Ah well, grist for the mill - I learn something new on every project.



I finished off the pillow using another faux bois fabric from Joel Dewberry - Woodgrain in Orange. I really like how cartoony the Chocolate version of the wood grain looks applied in this particular quilt block. I like the orange version too, but the high contrast in the chocolate makes the woodgrain easier to "read" - even across the room.



Here's one last shot for the hell of it!