WIP Wednesday

One WIP and one finish!

First, the WIP.  I'm just giving a teaser of this one because it's a gift for someone and I'm not sure if she reads my blog or not.  Plus I kind of like teasers - makes you come back to see the final product.

Kona turquoise, chartreuse, and white 

I'll hopefully be able to finish this up over the long weekend.

I'm also testing a pattern (first time ever! beyond excited!), but more on that at a later date...


Now, for the finish!

 

I made this pillow for my amazing friend Sabrina (of guest post fame). In addition to being a great person and a fun, reliable friend, she serves as our go-to cat sitter.  Though Sab and I only live a block apart, this requires her to get up at the break of dawn to come feed the cats before work, and then come over again when she gets home - which for Sab usually isn't until 9 or 10 at night.  Even this late, she usually stays a few extra minutes to keep the cats company and play with them.  Mr. T and I wanted to take her out to dinner to thank her, but instead she requested that Mr. T cook for her (yes, he's much better than a restaurant).  We finally got around to finding a time last weekend that worked for all of us.  As an extra surprise, I made Sab this pillow.  She kept saying how much she liked the zig zag pattern I used in my Zig Zag ROAR quilt (and zig zag/chevron is all the rage right now), so I figured I'd make something similar for her.

After a couple hours going through my stash, I finally settled on seven fabrics, plus some Kona Navy for the back:

Color Basic Minnie Dots in Chocolate on Mint by Lecien Fabrics
Bespoken Woven Dreams by Art Gallery Fabrics
Mod Basics Abacus in Green by Birch Fabrics
Stitch Orange by Betz White
Critter Community Trees in Retro by Suzy Ultman
Chelsea Stripe in Green by Whistler Studio
Chelsea Leaves in Purple by Whistler Studio

Please excuse the dust- I didn't have a chance to wash this and I our lint roller is MIA.

My original layout was a basic zig zag alternating each fabric per color in the line (if that makes sense), but after sewing all the HSTs together and laying it out, I really didn't like the way it looked.  I played around a bit, and decided on this up and down design.  In the end, Sab is lucky I actually handed this pillow over.  I really like it, especially the critter communities fabric (the orange with the trees).  You can't really tell because of how I ended up cutting and piecing that bit, but it has these great little snails and owls on it!  Next time I make something with it, I'll be sure to pay more attention when cutting so those will be featured.

These photos also show some of my perfect seams!!!  They're not all perfect, but I did a much better job than any of my previous projects.  I love seeing these clear signs of improvement.

Also, this was the first project for which I've had a real date with my seam ripper!  Thankfully it was a pretty easy fix - the equivalent of a cheap date if you will....

And lastly, because the purpose of this project was to thank Sabrina for watching our cats, I had to include a few photos of them enjoying her pillow:

Mitchell claiming his throne.

One of Cashmere's favorite toys is Mitchell's tail!

Linking to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.