If you’re following along, you grabbed the link to the great tutorial from Carol Doak.
And hopefully you made your 8 sheets and pieced them together.
Now we make a quilt sandwich!!
First, layer your cotton on the bottom (I used muslin because this layer won’t show). Next is your batting layer. And finish with your quilt block/top.
We’re going to start pinning it from the middle and then out towards the sides. Follow along to the pictures and see where my scissors are pointing to.
Repeat that in all directions. Working from the middle out towards the edges.
And thanks to modern day movie magic…bam, the whole thing is now pinned.
The backing needs to be bigger when you quilt so it can be trued up into a square (or rectangle for quilts). That extra fabric will be cut off later, no worries!
Alrighty. I stitched in the ditch between the fishes and orange part, all the way around. After that, I stitched in the ditch all the way around the outer pink part where it meets the white kona pieces.
Then I outlined the star all the way around.
All of this can be done on a regular ol’ sewing machine with a regular ol’ foot.
To make the back, I trued up my quilt block and it ended up being 12 by 12 inches. Sorry I didn’t get a picture of this step.
I cut a 12 by 12 orange chevron square out of a fat quarter and taa-dah, that’s my back!
Put right sides together and sew 1/4″ all the way around, leaving a 2 or 3 inch opening. Clip your corners and turn right sides out.
Overstuff it with “fluff” (polyester filling for stuffed animals and what-not). The stuffing always settles, so give it just a little extra.
And whipstitch or ladder/mattress stitch the pillow opening closed.
Taa-dah!! You have a pretty little pillow. Perfect for practicing your paper piecing. 🙂
Feel free to coordinate the colors with your room, favorite cat, ratty ol’ college sweatshirt or whatever else you love!
I made it with extra fabric for the girls because I’m planning a big birthday surprise for missy next month with matching bedding. 🙂
Look at those cute little seahorses. Awwww.