I Was Distracted By a Pillow

I watch a lot of YouTube videos while I sew. I’m subscribed to the Fat Quarter Shop, A Quilting Life, Jordan Fabrics, Seamwork, and quite a few other sewing-related channels. The drawback is that sometimes I’ll see patterns or projects that I want to make. I watched one pillow video the other day and suddenly my feed was full of pillow project videos, so of course I had to drop everything and make a pillow.

Oh look!—a squirrel.

Kimberly, at The Fat Quarter Shop, did a video on making a Faux Pleated Pillow about a year ago:

She notes in the video that the inspiration came from a similar tutorial at the Quilting in the Rain blog (from 2012). I watched the video, read the blog post, and decided I needed to make a pillow.

Home dec is not really my thing. I admire people with houses whose decor could grace the pages of a magazine. I gave that up as a goal about 30 years ago. I don’t change my decor to match the seasons, either, because nature does that for me. In the winter, I decorate with snow. In the spring, I decorate with mud. I’m happy if I can keep the clutter and dust down to a dull roar.

One of the added benefits of this craft co-op, though—and specifically, the sale—is that I have an excuse to try out lots of different projects. I can make something, and if it’s not something I can use or gift, I can put it aside for next year’s sale.

So I made a pillow:

The video and blog post both call for a jelly roll for making the pillow. Some years ago, one of the fabric companies began naming its collections of pre-cut fabrics after pastries. A “layer cake” is a collection of forty-two 10” squares. A “jelly roll” is a collection of forty-two strips. 2-1/2” wide by the width of a piece of fabric (approximately 44”), rolled up. These names have found their way into the quilting lexicon generically, so if you say “jelly roll” to a quilter, they know you aren’t talking about food.

I have some jelly rolls in the stash, but I didn’t want to break one open just to experiment with a pillow pattern. I went to my collection of scraps and pulled out the bag of white and cream 2-1/2” strips, folded them, pressed them, and sewed them to a piece of Kona Bone. The one change I did make was to put a piece of thin cotton batting under the Kona so I was sewing strips to both the Kona and the batting. I thought that gave the fabric a bit more stability. The whole pillow front took about an hour.

By then, it was time to leave for Robin’s. We spent the morning visiting, looking at projects—I discovered she has a Wheeler and Wilson D9 treadle in her sewing room (!!!!!!!)—and marking our pants so they could be hemmed. We examined the quilt she made for her bed, which has the same block, set on point, as the Blue Thistle quilt block I am making. (Her quilt was done in reds and creams.) We went to the Somers Bay Cafe for lunch. I am ashamed to say that I have lived in the Flathead for almost 30 years and have never eaten there. It was very good. We split a Reuben sandwich and a shrimp and avocado salad.

After lunch, I ran into Kalispell to pick up the husband’s work boots and his nail bag. He had both fixed at a local saddle shop after I said that I could do it, but only if I bought another sewing machine. I also stopped at Joann Fabrics to get a pillow form for my pillow.

[I don’t really want to get into sewing leather. The shop fixed his boots and nail bag in less than a week for a very reasonable price.]

Joanns is having some growing pains. Our local store, like every place else here, has cut its hours due to lack of staffing. They are also in the middle of a desperately-needed upgrade to their dinosaur of a computer system, and I gather this is a national upgrade as the stores in Spokane were having theirs upgraded as well. However, the signs advertising discounts on merchandise don’t always match the prices being rung up on the register. The sign on the pillow form display advertised 40% off. I got up to the register to pay and the cashier was so busy chatting at me that I wasn’t paying attention to the price of the two-pack of pillow forms. I saw a discount ring up, but it wasn’t until I was halfway home that I did the math in my head and realized the discount that rang up was only 25%, not 40%.

If I had noticed, they would have honored the 40% off, but it wasn’t worth turning around and going back. I am going to watch more closely from now on, at least until they get the bugs worked out of this new system. I am also noticing a visible decrease in the amount of inventory over what they normally have. Trying to find quilt backs is more difficult, because many of the bolts only have one or two yards on them. A quilt back usually requires 4-6 yards, unless it’s a wide back of 108”.

I may leave the pillow out; I may put it away for next year’s sale. This is a quick and easy way to use up scrap strips, though, and I did buy a two-pack of pillow forms. I could make a second one. I like the addition of the batting to make the pillow front a bit more substantial.