Quilted Liberty Pillow

I recently pulled out my Lucky Stars block-of-the-month blocks and decided to turn them into smaller projects. I made a mug rug with my 6 inch block and was extremely happy with the result. So when I needed to make something to be given as a prize for a fundraiser I'm attending tonight, turning one of the larger blocks into a pillow was an obvious choice. This was my first time making a quilted pillow case and I decided on two design elements: an invisible zipper and piping.

First, I quilted the block the same way I did the mug rug: stitching in the ditch of the star points and echo quilting in the negative space. Next I had to choose piping fabric. I wanted to pull out the lighter blue from the centre star, but I didn't want to use one of exact prints, because I felt they were too busy.

After some consultation with my friends on Instagram, I went with the blue and white floral Liberty print. I made an error when making the piping. I should have cut the fabric on the bias, but instead I did it on the straight of grain. This meant that when I got to the corners of the pillow, there was some wrinkling. This Sew Mama Sew tutorial explained that had I cut on the bias, wrinkles would be avoided. I'll know better next time.

Attaching the invisible zipper was tricky due to the piping. It got in the way of the invisible zipper foot. But I was able to make it work by sewing slowly and using my fingers to push the fabric through.

 Piping and quilting detail shots.

 

I am totally smitten with this pillow. I think there are more of these in my future!