FNSI ~ My Most Favorite Project EVER!

 Friday Night Sew In ~ August

 My Beloved Pillow for my niece!!!
"Frolicking Flowers"

Long ago on this post you saw my pillow inspiration.  Then on this post you saw bits of the beginning of my process for making this pillow.  NOW, it's finished and I almost don't want to give it away because I love it so much.  At least its going to my niece so I can visit the pillow every so often.... (am I crazy?  some of you probably understand....)

While watching Desperate Housewives on Hulu I had a great time 'auditioning' fabrics to be my flowers.  I switched it up quite a few times.  Then (because I was too lazy to go upstairs and get my circle cutter, sorry Cheryl) I used different sized glasses to trace all of the circles for the flowers.  Below I'll show you each flower and how I created it.  (I tried to take pics with my iPhone and they didn't turn out.. hubby had the camera.)

Amidst all of this fun my sewing machine tension went wacky.  It's an older machine and I LOVE it, but I'm pretty sure I messed the tension up on the last project I did.  whoops.  Luckily my mom has a very fabulous and portable Bernina...oooohhhhh!  She's so sweet because she let me borrow it!  I had TONS of REALLY awesome embroidery stitches at my disposal!!!  (My machine doesn't do embroidery.)  I definitely stayed up way too late playing with all of the stitches and finishing the pillow.

 Without the pillow inside.

Of course, I'm not sure that a 3 year old is going to be super excited about a pillow.... For a while I was thinking about how I could make this even more fun for her.  Then I remembered Lori Holt and her brilliant use of pom pom trim on her fabulous aprons.  That was the ANSWER!!!  My niece's room is purple and pink.  I couldn't decide which to get at JoAnns so I bought 2 yards of each.  When I got home I still couldn't decide which one.... so I used both!!!!!!!  =)  Afterall, I make the rules, right?

Did I mention that I love this pillow?  

 

Flower  #1 detail 

I appliqued all of the flowers using steam a seam.  Love it!  It's all machine embroidered with my mom's machine as I described above.

 

Flower #2 detail.  That's two pieces appliqued on top of eachother. 

The center of the flower

Flower #3 detail

Don't you just love this fabric?  I was having a hard time making a flower for the center one.  While staring at my fabric this one really stood out!  I realized how perfect it would be for its own flower!! 

The embroidered edge.

It was difficult to figure out how to embroider this print.   I almost just left it as a raw edge, but then decided it needed something.  I think the wiggly stitch turned out pretty well.

 

 Flower #4 detail

I just loved these circles!  It was fun trying different combinations of fabrics for each of the circles.  =)

Flower #5 The heart!

The 'inspiration' pillow had a scalloped edge heart.  I just thought that was too much work and I didn't have any cool ribbon.  I just cut some 'v's out of the edges to give it some texture.  The fabrics are such great colors too!

 

I really liked this stitch!  =)

 

 

I used the same stitch for all the stems and then I outlined all the leaves with a straight pink stitch. 

To finish the back of the pillow casing I made an 'envelope'.  Two pieces of fabric were used and they had a  3 inch overlap.  A couple of small snaps make it all stay together.  The pillow is for a child, so I wanted to make sure that it could be taken off and cleaned.  

I made the actual pillow using muslin.  The stuffing was from a pillow that I didn't like any more.  It was hardly used and the stuffing was like new.  Saves me from buying a pillow form (way too expensive.)

 It was a really rainy day this morning so I had trouble getting really good pics.  You can see the rain on the window in this one!  =)  The sun is out now, but my niece already has her pillow!  =) 

Thanks for stopping by!