Saturday, May 26, 2012

Habitat Pillow Covers

Yippeee! I'm so pleased to have these all done. I think I say that about all my projects - what can I say? I get bored very easily so pushing through and seeing projects to the end makes me incredibly happy.

I started these pillow covers during Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild's Habitat Challenge in late Summer of 2011, and around the same time, promised them to my sister for using on her brand-new dark brown leather couches (hence the choice of background colour). Not quite a year later, they're all done. Here's a collage* featuring them all, front and back:

Pillow Covers Collage

*new feature in PicMonkey - I think I prefer Big Huge Labs' Mosaic Maker because I don't have to settle for a square arrangement.

There are two main themes in the designs - strips and wonky stars. I settled on two quilting designs, and used both for each theme. Aurifil 28wt in dark brown (5024) was my thread of choice.

3 stars front
Radiating lines from bottom corners

wonky stars front
Random diagonal lines

strips front
Radiating

bar graph front
Random

The pillow covers finished at about 18" square. The backs used up nearly all my Habitat scraps plus a variety of browns from my stash. They also feature flaps to cover the zippers. I loosely followed this tutorial but basically worked out my own method which creates a flap with the fabric used for the top half of the pillow back. 

Rather than batting I once again used Pellon Fusible Fleece (TP971F Fusible Thermolam Plus) - it is wonderful for pillow tops.

True story: I only have one 20" pillow form, so I had to remove the Crane Star cover and dress it up 4 different times to snap the photos on my upper deck (I love our view best when there's still some snow on the mountains).

I'll be delightedly linking up this finish to Sew Happy Geek's Manic Monday, Fabric Tuesday AND Ellison Lane's Summer Sewing Contest as well (all buttons/links in sidebar). 

21 comments:

  1. It always feels so good to finish something - and these are lovely! (I haven't tried PicMonkey, but ipiccy.com has some really cool collage/mosaic options. I could spend hours mucking around with it.)

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  2. Gorgeous pillows and view! Oh to have a top deck ;-)

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  3. Quilting the random diagonal lines turned out really nice for this project. I love the stars! So cute. I had to take note of the fleece you used, I tried making a pillow cover with batting once and it turned out just awful, very bulky.

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  4. Gosh - these turned out wonderfully well - the brown with the Habitat is unexpected but is works beautifully - great work!!

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  5. Beautiful cushions! And i LOVE your patio. Do you live downtown?

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  6. What a view! I love your cushions. The radiating quilting is my favorite.

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  7. when using Aurifil 28wt my sewing machine gets all knotted up. Do you use it in the bobbin or top thread? These pillows are beautiful

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  8. They look great! I have some similar pillows that I need to blog about! :)

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  9. That is a really beautiful collection! How I love those wonky stars and wait to find time to make more of them. I'm sure your sister loves her new pillows! x Teje

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  10. They're gorgeous! I love quilting you did on them.

    And your view is ridiculous. (The good kind of ridiculous) I wish I lived closer to the mountains... Or could visit Van more often. Either, really.

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  11. Felicity, these are fabulous! they turned out so lovely. the different browns are wonderful and i especially love the pillow with a whole bunch of stars!

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  12. Inspiration! I have a Sunday to sew and a few random quilt blocks -- perhaps they will become cushion covers by the end of the day!

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  13. first, i'm so impressed that you finished the habitat challenge. my fabric is still waiting for inspiration to strike.
    second, habitat on brown is an unexpected delight. i bet these will be *gorgeous* on a leather couch.

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  14. Cue fanfare!!! Well done finishing these up Felicity. I'm really having to stretch with this comment: Habitat AND brown? Are you trying to kill me? Despite that gawdawful fabric, these are gorgeous pillow covers, hehe.

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  15. Love the pilloxws and when I was playing with picmonkey, you can opt for different mosaic layouts!

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  16. Cool pillows! Love these, well done! thanks for sharing, I live up north in the Bulkley Valley!

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  17. I'm so impressed with both the pillow output and the degree to which the brown really calms down the somewhat crazy (to me) Habitat prints.

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  18. Gorgeous! The stars are so great, and really cool against the brown background. An unlikely pairing (which I love) that works to a T.

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  19. stop it! I adore all of them, especially the stars!

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  20. These look fab and I'm particularly enjoying the diagonal quilting lines - must give that a go.

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  21. I don't know how I missed these! So cool. And Krista's comment cracks me up.

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