Chunky ZigZag Pillow Tutorial

My Bliss pillow/cushion campaign continues this week with another pretty one to add to my sofa!

Here it is, in all its chunky zig-zaggy lovelieness:

I made this in super fast time using my Accuquilt GO! Baby to cut the pieces. When it arrived earlier in the week, I couldn't wait to try it out, having seen it and coveted it so much on blogs lately. And it didn't disappoint!

I got 3 dies - the Diamond, the Drunkards Path and the Hexagons - all shapes that can be a little bit tricky to cut accurately in the more traditional way and certainly very time consuming. I just loved how quickly I could turn out the pieces on the GO! Baby and had all the diamonds cut for this pillow in probably about 10 minutes, including trimming my scrap pieces for the die. I found it very efficient and the only issue I encountered was threads occasionally getting caught in the corners of the die, which a sharp pair of nail scissors beside me solved with a minimum of fuss! As someone who struggles with cutting the more "complex" shapes accurately, I am totally thrilled with the GO! Baby and can certainly see myself using it quite a bit. It's pretty compact too which is important for me as I have no dedicated sewing space and it needs to fit into my very limited shelving with the rest of my sewing things.

Want to make this pillow? Here's the super easy tutorial!


I used the 4 x 4" diamonds die for my GO! Baby which cuts 2 diamonds in each layer of fabric. You can do up to 6 layers at a time through it which makes for super fast cutting - 12 diamonds at a time in this case once I had my Bliss scraps prepped. I soon had lots and lots of lovely diamonds, precisely cut. See how perfect they look!


Next, I played around with the layout until I was happy with it - the fun part! I used a cream solid to contrast my zig zaggy Bliss rows. It's helpful to take a quick snap with your camera or phone so that you can refer back to it if you get pieces mixed up as you sew. Or if you have pre-school helpers standing by to "assist"!


Then, make a little stack of the diamond pieces for each vertical column in the order you have laid them out.


Take your 1st stack of diamond pieces and using a small square cutting ruler or measuring tape, and a water soluble pen or pencil, make a tiny mark 1/4" in from your top and bottom edges on the side edge.


Do this on all pieces. This will help you line up your seams correctly. You can, of course, eyeball it if you're confident in what you're doing but if you're a little challenged by spatial stuff like I am, its worth taking the minute required to mark each piece before you sew the column.


Sew your first 2 pieces right side together, matching up your dots and your edges. You will end up with little "dog ears" sticking out on either side.


Sew the remaining pieces in the right order and press your seams on the column to one side (all in the same direction).


Then sew the pieces for each remaining column together and press your seams so that they are going in alternating directions on each column to make sewing your column seams together easier.

Next, sew your columns together in pairs, and join the 3 paired columns to make your pillow top. I trimmed off the top and bottom to make quilting it a little easier.


I then grabbed a batting scrap and quilted the pillow top following the zig zags in the pattern. I quilted 1 line inside the seams for each of the colour zig zags, and then quilted lots of zig zag lines 3/8" apart in the cream solid, to make the colours pop even more.


Trim your pillow top and then sew on the back in whatever style you want - you could do an envelope back if you want to keep it simple. I put a zip in the bottom seam of this one. Put in your pillow form (mine was from a tired old ugly pillow in my playroom which I upcycled), place on your sofa and admire!! This pillow will join my other Bliss pillows and quilt on my living room sofa.


So, of course, you know what's coming up next by now......Keep your eyes peeled for the giveaway post coming soon!

Bliss pillow progress....

Thanks to the lovely Susan, I doubled my stash of Bliss scraps yesterday...even better, hers were darker colours and slightly larger scale prints than mine and I was thrilled with them!

So, I got straight to it today, pulled up the Sprocket Pillow tutorial and got cutting. Wow, what a great tute, its so straightforward and very easy - and such a nice result! Really pleased with this one. And I feel my colours and prints are much more balanced than the star pillow.


I really like the button detail in this one - and the scarlet Fresh fabric I used to cover it is the very last tiny scrap I had of this fabric - probably one of my favourites in the line.


I used a solid cream for the side, and its backed with some Freebird fabric (as is the other cushion) which I used to bind my Bliss quilt - its a nice complimentary fabric.


I also quilted and finished the scrappy star cushion. Looking at the V shape of the star points, I decided to try to echo it in the quilting, even though the star "V"s were not totally even. But I think it worked and I was pretty happy with how it turned out. The lines are 1/2" apart.


I put a zip in the bottom seam of this cushion and I made a silly mistake at the start and it took ages to sort it out. I had to put the kids out of the kitchen and close the door so that their vocabulary of choice expressions was not increased hundredfold! But it is looking ok at last!


Here they are sitting on my quilt - looking lovely together I think :-) I'll be making at least a couple more to join these on my two living room sofas. One will be zigzags, one will be from this Cluck Cluck Sew tute.... and I'm still thinking about more! If anyone wants to point me in the direction of a great pillow/cushion tute please do!!

Now, not having been online for more than 3 minutes at a time since Wednesday morning, I'm off to catch up on my blog reading!!

I'm linking up to the lovely projects over at:

WIP Wednesday

Well, I've been a bit absent from the WIP Wednesday club these last few weeks. Managing to post at all with how busy things are at the moment is such a major success, I haven't been able to manage a WIP post as well. Plus I'm not working on quite so many projects as I normally do. But I thought I'd do a little update.

Completed this week:

Eh, nothing really.... except that I was totally thrilled to win 3rd place in the Weekly Quilt Contest over at Quilting Gallery, so thank you to everyone who voted for me, I so appreciate it. I can't wait to pick out my prize FQs :-)

Work in Progress:

I have a few things on the go actually.

I needed a small project to work on to balance the bigger quilts so I decided to make myself cushion (pillow!!) covers for some old cushions on my sofa. I saw a lovely scrappy star block show up on a few blogs for Bee blocks and went and had a look at the tutorial on Moda Bake Shop and then made some adjustments for my cushion cover size and to make it a little scrappier. Here's the front pieced:


I still have to quilt it obviously. I'm a bit unsure about this - the colour palette is a bit more pink / pale than I intended, as I only have a small number of Bliss fabrics. (Its to match my Bliss quilt on my sofa.) But my lovely bloggy friend Susan came to my rescue today and is sending me on some scraps which I will use for the other 2 cushions and hopefully they'll all balance out. I do love this quilt pattern - would definitely consider it for my month in the new Bee I've joined (more anon!)

My Kaleidoscope Quilt top is done (or nearly!) Thanks so much for all the advice and suggestions re: borders or not....I'm still mulling it over! Hoping to get this basted and quilted and finished this weekend!


I also have finally made some progree on my bedroom curtains...they're coming along slowly but surely, when I get some sofa time for the hand sewing. This is the fabric I'm using - it a gorgeous, rich, heavy champagne/aqua blue fabric and will blend perfectly in my room where I have a feature wall in a beautiful Laura Ashley duck egg blue wallpaper.



Other Stuff:

I'm really excited to have signed up for some Flickr swaps - the Scrappy Mug Rug Swap and For the Love of Solids. Looking forward to getting my swap partners and doing a little stalking ;-) I find swaps make you think a little differently and force you to be a little more creative, so I can't wait. I'm trying to see if we have enough interest for an Irish swap in the Sew Irish Flickr group - its for a small item so if you're interested, please pop over and let me know on the thread!


I also signed up for Jenna's Sew Bee Blissful which is the first bee I've participate in. Its starting in August. I'm a little nervous but looking forward to it! And lastly, I jumped at the chance to join Jennifer's Rainbow Charm Swap Round 2 having received a lovely bundle in the post last week!

Linking up to Lee's WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced - go check out the talented ladies over there!

Bliss Charm Quilt finished at last!

 Tonight I finally finished the quilt I started at Christmas. It's been a bit stop and start in terms of the time I got to work on it but it was definitely worth it!

I made this using a Moda Charm pack - "Bliss" by Bonnie and Camille. The sashing is a cream & white fabric I picked up some time ago, and the binding is from the Freebird range by Momo.

I used Kristie's McKinley quilt pattern and adjusted it slightly to make it a bit larger. I also decided not to do the flowers as I liked it without when I saw it coming together!



It's quilted in the sashing lines between the squares and on the edges of the squares. I used a natural coloured cotton thread for the quilting and was really happy with it.  I did the lines approx a quarter of an inch apart and they are slightly wonky but I love the effect.



This is the first time I have quilted lines so close together and I did find it a bit tricky but as its for myself and I like it, I'm pretty happy with it. It's not perfect but I learned lots making it and it gave me so many ideas for the 2 other quilts I'm working on at the moment.

I found this pattern really easy to follow and I love the way the charm squares are separated out. The sashing and the quilting technique help them to "pop" out of the quilt.

Its backed with some large pieces of "Bloom and Grow" fabric which are paired with a solid cream cotton and this compliments the colours nicely on the back.



I ended up machine sewing the binding although I had intended to handsew it to finish, purely because I couldn't wait to get it done and see it in my room!  I got a good even stitch on it and it looks very nice.The pattern in this piece of fabric is a geometric print and I was slightly concerned that it wouldn't look good as I cut it on the straight of the grain instead of on the bias but the way it flows from large to small print looks very natural and adds interest to the quilt.



I'm totally in love with it! Even Himself, who was a bit sceptical about the blue and green charms working in our living room (which is deep red and cream, with brown leather sofas) thinks it is fab - high praise indeed! Looking forward to wrapping myself up in tomorrow night on the sofa watching some tv!



I've posted up this link over at Fabric Tuesday on Quilt Story, on Sugar and Dots and Thrilling Thursday on www.paiselypassions.blogspot.com

Progress Report! And opinions please!

I've been quiet on the blogging front this week - for 2 reasons. I have lost my good camera. Disaster! And I've been really busy working on 3 quilts. I finished the quilt top for the little girl's one tonight. (Sorry the pics aren't better, luckily I was too lazy to Freecycle my old camera before Chrismas so at least I could get some!)

I used 7.5 inch squares for most of it, with a small number of squares pieced from smaller squares. The dominant colours are shades of red and green (although some of the cooler green shades are coming up with a blue tone in this photo), but I used a range of bright, cheerful colours and prints to give it a vibrant, colourful look. The quilt top needs borders and I hope to baste it tomorrow/Wednesday and get it quilted by the weekend. I'm going to quilt it lengthwise in wide, wavy lines in keeping with the modern, contemporary look. I can't wait to see how it looks when its finished, there is such a difference between mid project and the finished object!

It took quite a long time to get the squares laid out in an arrangement that I was happy with, balancing colours, sizes of prints and dark/light shades. I really missed my camera here, I usually take pics of various layouts and then look at them on screen which I find very helpful. But I think I managed ok! I pieced the 8 rows yesterday and then this evening, pieced all the rows together. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I'll use a solid colour to bind it as the top is so busy.

 I've used a very eclectic combination of fabrics for this quilt. There are lots of Ann Kelle prints - the bright butterflies, stripes, the owls, the argyle print. Also some of the Bliss collection by Bonnie and Camille. Some lovely Michael Miller Ta-Dot and Daisy prints, Amy Schimler cat and owl prints, Riley Blake's Love Birds, Summer Song & Rainy Days collections and even a lovely Kokka Russian Doll print. Plus a few others too!

More detail here:

 I love this arrangement of the owls and the hedgehogs:

So I am pleased to be making progress. I need to measure it again tomorrow night and decide on whether to add sashing or not, if I do it will be solid white. I'm thinking either a solid red or a solid green for the binding - I'd love to hear your opinions! So please leave a comment if you would have a preference. I know what red I would use - one similar to the red dots in the photo just above, but if I go with a green I could use either a lime green shade, or a grass green. I think the darker shade would probably be better but still thinking about it. I'm veering towards the darker green if I'm honest as there's a lot of red in the quilt top, and also to bring out the green tones more.

I'm cutting the pieces for the boys quilt this week too. I'm using a different design for that one which I'm not going to attempt to explain at this time of night!

Finally, in my little report, remember this Bliss charm pack which I picked up at the Knitting and Stitching show?

It's now looking like this:

As you can see, I'm still in the middle of quilting it and there are pins everywhere! I couldn't get a decent picture of the whole thing due to the light/camera issue (plus the fact that Himself was watching something very important and not as willing to come out and hold it up for photos as he was for the other quilt). I am using Kristie's McKinley quilt pattern with some adjustments to make it slightly bigger and really enjoying it. I picked up the sashing fabric at the Knitting and Stitching show too and wasn't sure how it would work but its actually really nice against the Bliss squares - a picture in daylight would show the effect much better than the above pic - its not as mottled as it looks here. It's quilted on the edges of the square and the sashing in straight lines, quite close together. I have the horizontal quilting lines almost done and need to do the vertical ones next. Then just bind it and its done! Yippee, it will be lovely on our sofa as a throw and will fit in perfectly in our room. I found the basting a little tricky because the backing fabric was pieced with some stripes but got there eventually.

Ok, so that's my report. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the binding for the first quilt and keep your fingers and toes crossed my camera turns up!