Quilted Pillow with Binding
This pillow cover was so fun and easy to make and I love the appliqued piece in the center. It's a great way to fussy cut your favorite print or characters. But first, let me tell you about what inspired this cute project....
My friend Amanda Herring is hosting a Friendship Quilt-Along and I'm quilting along too. I made the CONSIDERATE block which is the 6" block that you see in the middle of my pillow cover in the picture above. But there are so many other beautiful blocks and each one represents an attribute found in friendship; empathetic, loyal, patient, helpful and so many others. Amanda started her quilt-along at the beginning of June and every week a new block is featured with a tutorial and videos on her blog. CLICK TO GO TO AMANDA'S BLOG. This is what the finished quilt looks like:
If you want to make this gorgeous quilt, go to Amanda's site to download the FREE PATTERN. The quilt features Amanda's latest fabric collection called Hello Lovely. There is also a TEMPLATE KIT which you'll need if you're going to follow the tutorials. I have these templates and not only can you use them for this quilt pattern, but they have so many other uses too. There are lots of basic shapes in the kit like petals, circles, a fun scallop and flowers too. This is what the package looks like. 16 pieces of fun!!
I used the circle template to make the center piece for the 6" CONSIDERATE block. The template is a nice sturdy plastic that you can see through which was helpful for fussy-cutting our little pandas.
Amanda's instructions are clear, concise and easy to follow - this is a sample page and the one that I used from the free pattern: CONSIDERATE block 6" square
And here are my pieces for the block, cut and ready to sew.
The piecing of the block whips up quickly. Here are my pieces laid out, ready to be sewn together.
For my center appliqué piece I used the lightweight interfacing method that I learned from Lori Holt. You can see the method on the Riley Blake Designs Youtube channel: CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO
Here's my finished block ready to be trimmed.
The great thing about the quilt-along is that you get to try new techniques and create so many great blocks that work so well together. Even if you have time to make only 1 block (like me), you can turn it into a fun project. Because I have a new little grandson, I decided to make a small pillow for his room. My pillow form was 13" square, so I needed to add white sashing all around the 6" block.
With the top pieced and finished, I made a quilt sandwich with batting and a white backing fabric. I pinned and marked (with Frixion Pen) where I wanted my quilt lines. Starting from the middle of the pillow cover and working my way out to the edges, I top stitched over the pen lines. With a hot iron, I removed the lines made by the Frixion Pen - how cool is that - they magically disappear??
To make the envelope back of the pillow, I cut 2 pieces of the Words fabric. With wrong sides together, and a 2" binding folded and pinned, I used the easy binding method. You can see this technique explained by Cindy Cloward of Riley Blake Designs here: EASY PILLOW BINDING VIDEO This binding technique is the same method you would use when binding a quilt - it's my new favorite way to bind a pillow - I love it!!
I think the horizontal quilting lines give my finished pillow cover a contemporary feel. They say black and white is a good color combo for babies, so I hope our new grandson likes it.
Until our grandson comes to claim his new pillow, both of my Panda pillows will be hanging out in our kitchen on the banquette benches.
