Another School Auction Pocket Pillow

One of my really good friends asked me to do a pocket pillow for her school auction that she works at every year, so of course I said yes.  Since I only had time to make one, I decided to make this one very gender neutral, so it would be perfect for either a boy or a girl.

I made the pillow out of  the "Welcome to Bear Country" fabric collection by Moda.  I really like this fabric collection.  The Berenstain Bears were my favorite when I was growing up!  The pattern I used was from the book Growing up Modern by Allison Harrison.  The only thing I changed was I made my pocket out of hourglass blocks and added a binding strip across the top of the pocket.  It is a really easy pattern and goes together rather quickly.  I needed that because I must confess that I started it and finished it last night!  The thread I used was #971 Superior King Tut Quilting Thread.  It seems to work the best with my machine for the most part.  The quilting pattern is just a basic allover swirl.  Here are some up close pictures of the quilting.  

Now hopefully it does well at the school auction!

Linking up to Finish it up Friday link party hosted by Amanda at Crazy Mom Quilts.

Happy Quilting!

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Auebre's Pocket Pillow

One of my niece's birthday is coming up at the end of the month and she loves to read.  I used to also love to read when I was a little girl.  My mom couldn't buy books fast enough!  Since I have wanted to make another pocket pillow to tweak my pattern a bit, I decided this would be the perfect gift for her.

My sister bought her "new bedding" over Christmas that was white with all different colors of bright polka dots.  I decided to use the Ombre Dots collection by Riley Blake, which can be purchased here.

As you can see it is a really pretty collection!  I am hoping that it will be close enough to my niece's new bedding that it will be a nice compliment.  

I decided that I was going to make the pillow smaller because the pillows I made before were 18 inches and they just seemed really large and bulky.  I have decided that I am going to try this one at 14 inches square.  Another change is going to come from the piece behind the pocket.  I have decided to make that all one piece instead of piecing it together, so the only piecing will be the pocket.  Of course the pocket will be made out of hour glass blocks (my favorite), which are shown below.  

The pocket will consist of 2 rows of 4 blocks, which are 4 inches unfinished.  I have one row completely sewn together and need to finish the second row, and then I will sew these two rows together.  

Now this is where you come in, I need to pick one of the fat quarters below to be the piece behind the pocket, and then another one to be the "binding" of the pillow.

This will be my first time using binding on a pillow, so hopefully it turns out as well as some of the other ones that I have seen out in blogland.  Well leave me some comments and let me know what colors you think.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday link party hosted by Lee at Freshly Pieced.

Happy Quilting!

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2013 - A Lovely Year of Finishes - April Goal

I have decided that my "finish" for April will be my mother in law's family tree quilt.  I got the quilt top done with my sister in law in February just in time for my mother in law's birthday.  It turned out really cute and we were pretty happy with it and so was she!

I am finding that it is much better for me to break larger projects like this one down into two parts: 

1. Complete the quilt top.
2. Quilt and bind the quilt.  

Maybe it just seems less overwhelming breaking it down into two parts, or prevents me from getting bored or frustrated with a larger project.  So my plan for this month is to quilt this quilt and bind it.  Wish me luck!

Linking up to 2013 - A Lovely Year of Finishes hosted by Fiber of All Sorts.

Happy Quilting!

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