Toasty Wool Pillow for Icebat

I just completed my second wool pillow. I made it for Icebat. Like the last one, it was inspired by the Japanese book "wool patchwork: warm quilt for the home."



I purchased these packs of felted wool from The City Quilter. They are from Wild Thymes Pattern Co., and they look quite appealing in their little stacks.



I was inspired by this lovely picture from the book. I love how their version is both wooly and lemony at the same time.



They have some instructions in Japanese in the back, but I could figure out what I wanted to do by looking at the photo, so I didn't refer to them. Here's my quick sketch for my version of the project. I carry around a little notebook of graph paper for this purpose - sometimes I work things out on the subway. This is one of the simplest designs ever - it's almost embarrassing to put it here:



I'm finding using the cotton fill pretty liberating, because when I use it I'm not married to any particular pillow size. I decided to make the pillow 12" x 12" because I thought it would be cute.

I played with the squares until I got something I liked:



I don't know if you can see it here, but there is a nice herringbone mixed in there. These little pieces of wool are rather expensive, and I caught myself obsessing at a brunch this weekend over my friend's vintage pants. I can see myself going out and trolling the flea markets for some old clothing - because if I'm going to continue with the wool pillow making I need to find a cheaper way to do it.



The wool was considerably more difficult to iron than the cotton quilt fabric I'm used to. I normally iron both the seam allowances in one direction, but with the wool, I carefully pressed the seam allowances open so that they wouldn't be too thick. I really had to lean on the iron to get those seams to stay down!

Then I took a bowl of pom-poms, sat down with my favorite cup of tea, and set upon the task of sewing those cute little pom-poms onto the pillow top. This is a good activity to do while watching TV.



Cute as a button! I like how Icebat looks both bashful and proud in this picture - I intentionally chose the pom-poms to match him. Ta-da!

Toasty Yellow Wool Pillow

Here's my latest pillow. Yay!



I bought this book "wool patchwork: warm quilt for the home" in the Kinokuniya bookstore in Japantown in San Francisco. I'd never seen it before, and I haven't seen it since. I couldn't find it on Amazon - but you could special order it from your local bookstore by ISBN 4-579-10894-9.



Above is a photo from this lovely book - there are many tempting projects in here. I based my pillow on the top one on that pile.



I was planning to do an envelope back like I usually make, but the felting on the wool made the pieces uneven (see the right side above), and when I squared them off, the patchwork top couldn't fit a standard pillow. Well, I have lots of leftover cotton fill from my tiny pincushion project:



I hand sewed a running stitch going through the seam allowance on the other side, as the book instructions illustrated:





Looks real nice!



I made the back out of a fabric from Denyse Schmidt's Katie Jump Rope line.



We love pillows!

Mmmm... More Japanese Quilt Block Pillows

My latest project is another one from the book Japanese Quilt Blocks to Mix and Match.

I had purchased some blue fabric last week, and constructed block #5, otherwise known as Kurume kasuri igeta.

I was very happy with the results, and have been plotting since then about what block to do next. I settled on the very next one, #6 - Yamato kasuri igeta (Yamato well curb).



I am truly attracted to the simplicity of the designs and colors laid out in the book, but I like to add just a little bit of pattern to add more texture and fun to the look.

First I pieced 5 strips of fabric together...



... and then cut them perpendicularly to create the 1st, 3rd, and 5th columns below.



I did this as a "time saving" method, but it left me with a lot of extra sewn fabric that I couldn't use for this project. Hopefully I'll be able to apply it another one.



I chain stitched the remaining squares for columns 2 and 4:



After I sewed the columns together, I added the outside strips. I adapted the "recipe" in the book from a 9" block to a 16" block, so there was some slight redesign involved, which I plotted out on a small piece of graph paper before starting.

The most major change was adding this colorful 1 1/2" border. Visually, I like to think it looks like the binding on a quilt.



So, here's the two blocks as they appear in the book:



And here they are transformed into pillows!



I was very pleased with the results and took many glamour shots:



As always, I couldn't resist putting some quirkiness into the back:



I like how splashes of color peek out when you pass them from diffferent angles:



Look who's happy for new pillows!!

Blue for you

I just completed my second project from Japanese Quilt Blocks to Mix and Match. The first one I did was for my dad.

This time I tackled block #5, otherwise known as Kurume kasuri igeta.



I have to admit, I was bad. I a) bought fabric yesterday when I was supposed to be adhering to my self-imposed fabric-buying freeze and b) used the fabric before washing it. Sigh. I just couldn't wait. That's okay, I just won't wash it. Ever.

Here are the culprits:





Who could resist these charmers?

These actually represent some of my favorite fabric patterns, but these are the first time I have played with these particular color variations. Again, dark blue is a new thing for me.

Before I get started with cutting and sewing, I translate and re-do the pattern a little. The blocks in the book are set up to be 9" squares - perfect for a quilt, or a small, fill-stuffed pillow, I suppose. When I did my dad's pillow, I simply "doubled the recipe," and made an 18" pillow. However, I greatly prefer 16" pillows for myself. They're just, well, cuter.



This was a little more complicated than just doubling all of the called-for sizes; instead, I decided to make some variations, including adding some kind of "binding"- looking border with the brown/blue flowered fabric, which is from Denise Schmidt's Katie Jump Rope series.

The pattern in the book called for pre-cutting every piece, but I like timesaving techniques, such as this. Do you really want to cut 15 individual squares and then sew them together? No.





Completing the "border":



The top is done!



And here's some detailed shots of the sides and back. I really like to see those white on blue polka-dots peaking out.



I couldn't resist adding a splash of color! That orange fabric is also from Denyse Schmidt's Katie Jump Rope series.





Et voila!

Pillows for Parents

I have finally figured out the trick for making pillows for parents. I have made several in the past that I've been unhappy with, because I adhered too much to their taste and not enough to my own. That is not to say that I would want to give anyone a gift that ignored their sensibilities - the trick is to blend theirs and mine, so that they get something they will enjoy and hopefully treasure, and I'll be able to spend the time doing a project that I will enjoy the process of producing.

I have recently forced myself into a self-imposed fabric purchasing freeze. This has been fairly successful, though I did allow myself the purchase of a single polka-dotted fat quarter from purl patchwork, to get my fix.

The other ways I've been obeying the rules of the freeze but really being bad in the meantime, is that I've been stocking up on non-fabric supplies, such as books and embroidery thread. I had recently found the book Japanese Quilt Blocks to Mix and Match. I had resisted buying it for about two and a half days, after which I found myself inevitably drawn back, credit card in hand.



I assuaged my guilt by immediately putting it to use for my Dad's birthday/father's day pillow. I had recently been given a bunch of blue fat quarters from my aunt from her old quilting stash. I had been unsure of the blue, but now it was all coming together; most Dads reliably like blue, and mine is no exception. I settled on a pattern I thought would make good use of some of the very subtle patterns in the fabric I had on hand.



I first tried doing this similarly as I would log cabin pattern - that is, cut long strips of the three colors first, then sew and cut as I went. However, the pattern was a little more complex than I was used to, and required very precise placement of the colors rather than the more spontaneous placement in the log-cabins I've done in the past. If I did it again, I would probably cut the pieces to size first, and lay them all out on my cutting board, so I could see exactly where they went before I started stitching.

Nonetheless, this was a very fun and not too difficult project, and I'm happy with the results. It felt a little like putting together a puzzle. I couldn't help but add a little bit of color - I used a contrasting orange zig-zag stitch to finish off the envelope backing.



Here's a detail. The darker fabrics are from my aunt's stash - not sure what fabrics they are, but I'm pretty sure they would be no longer available at this point. The lighter fabric is from the Fabric Place, a suburban chain where I found some amazing fabrics last fall that I haven't seen anywhere else.