Pillow Talk Process

Today I sent off my pillow cover for the Pillow Talk Swap on Flickr, just in under the deadline. This one was hard to send away. I really love it and hope it's what my partner was looking for. To me it totally feels like something you would find in Anthropologie, which is hopefully a good thing. 

Originally I had a much different design in mind, but then I saw this photo on flickr and was instantly intrigued. I've never seen that kind of design in modern quilting before. I sketched out some ideas and decided to construct mine in long strips rather than blocks like this, so that it could have a scrappier look. 

So each strip is made of five pieces joined together on the bias, and alternating between high and low value. Once all the strips were together, I staggered them by one inch to get the wavy zigzag look and joined them. They finish at 1" for an 18" pillow cover. It's so unlike me to not use any solids at all in a project like this, but I loved playing with the values here. 

Here's a close up of my quilting as I was working on it. The diagonal lines 1/4" apart switch directions a couple times. I love dense quilting on a pillow like this. Crazy cozy. 

On the back I used a bright yellow print from Indi, which looks so fun against the fairly neutral front. I put a zipper in the side seam using the great instructions in the new Modern Designs for Classic Quilts book. (You can still enter my giveaway for the book here!) The Indi collection by Pat Bravo was one thing that my partner said she loved a lot, so I started with a few of those prints and picked the rest from my stash. I'm so glad I got to work with this collection because I don't think it's something I would have bought otherwise, but the colors are so rich and pretty. 

It's on it's way now and I can't wait for it to get to it's new owner! Also can't wait to see what might be on it's way to me. There are always so many super beautiful pillows that come out of this swap, I was a little intimidated to sign up for the first time. But I'm glad I did. It's things like this that push you to do things you wouldn't have thought of otherwise, and just become a better sewist. I love when that happens.