Midwinter Night Pillow in THE QUILTER (Holiday 2012)

Yup, it’s that time of the year.  My favorite postmaster at my local post office asked me the other day if I knew we had exactly 90 days before Christmas. I had not a clue what he was talking about because I am still working on making gifts for Christmas 2011!!!  Anyhow, I had shown you this sneak peek a few months ago…

The sneak peek is part of my Midwinter Night Pillow, featured in The Quilter’s Holiday 2012 issue.

I am not sure if you knew, but The Quilter has a separate Christmas Holiday issue every year in addition to their regular six bi-monthly magazine.  So you get 7 issues for a 1-year subscription.  I think this year’s Holiday issue is the best compared to Holiday issues past.  The only thing I missed seeing was Pearl Louise Krush’s snowmen – you will know what I am talking about if you have seen The Quilter’s Holiday issues in the past!  The following shows a sample of the projects in this year’s Holiday issue:

[Image Source: Screen shot from http://thequiltermag.com/features/hol12/quiltingforchristmas.shtml]

So back to the pillow.  The project uses fabrics from Benartex Fossil Fern, Wintersong, and just plain scraps.  The versatility of the design allows you to easily pick and choose the fabrics of your choice to make the pillow top.

I used fusible machine applique method to applique the tree branch and birds.  Click here, and here to read about my articles on fusible machine applique.

This is a super close-up shot, where you also end up seeing my outline quilting stitches.

 

I almost often quilt my pillow before constructing the pillow case.  That way, the top will have a bit of dimensional look to it, and doesn’t look as flat.  So, I treated the pillow top as a quilt, basted and quilted it with Aurifil Mako 50 Cotton threads over Hobbs Tuscany Silk Batting.  I  outline quilted the edges of the applique shapes to give the shapes a bit of a poof.  I used a pillow insert from Fairfield’s Poly-fil Home Elegance Collection.

And then I quilted snowflakes against the black mottled background.  You can see the scales of the smaller snowflakes with respect to the size of a penny.  The snowflake motif patterns are available on the tear-out section of the magazine.

The way I prepped for quilting the snowflakes is as follows:  I traced a snowflake motif onto a piece of freezer paper, and cut out the snowflake shape.  I auditioned placements for the cut out on the black mottled background.  Once I found a placement I liked, I lightly dab the freezer paper shape with my iron to temporarily hold the shape in place on the black mottled background.  I then used a Clover white marker to trace and transfer the motif outline to the black mottled background.  I would remove the freezer paper shape, and quilted the snowflakes by following the traced outline.

If pillow isn’t your thing to do, you can always expand the cardinal center into a wallhanging, placemats, or even the front of a tote!  And with that, I bid you all a Happy Weekend!  See you next week.

Thanks for stopping by.