For this month’s pillow, I have taken my inspiration from Diane Gaudynski’s Guide to Machine Quilting. I have owned this excellent, comprehensive book for many a year.
Diane is a very talented award winning quilter and I admire her work very much!
You can find lots of eye candy and free motion quilting tips on Diane’s blog!
Diane is an elegant, traditional quilter and uses lots of feathers and echo quilting. I saw this feather on page 69:
And on page 31 of Diane’s book:
I drew a version of it with a blue marker on a white tone-on-tone cotton fabric (I would have used silk, or sateen, if I had any, but couldn’t find any in my stash of fabrics.)
The ‘J’ is the initial of the name of a good friend to whom I will be giving this pillow.
A layer of batting is stitched with water soluble thread, and then carefully trimmed.
I wish I were better at taking photos, especially of white on white!
Since my friend likes pink, I am using a 40 weight pink variegated Aurifil thread for the feathers and the letter. The rest of the wholecloth quilting is done with 50 weight white Aurifil thread.
You can begin to see the texture forming!
Finished and washed:
Detail:
Like the other pillows that I have been making, this one is simple with a covered zipper.
Last look:
I participated in QuiltShopGal’s 2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge, so it would’ve been fun for me to repeat Diane’s lesson and compare the ‘then and now’. I may do that yet. However, I am doing Option 2 from this year’s Free Motion Quilting Challenge, and I will be linking up over there.
Previous pillows/challenges:
LC's Cottage 