Gift For My Sister, from My Other Sister

 Yesterday was my oldest sister's birthday, and I made her a pillow sham from our late sister's clothes.

I saw this 3D pinwheel design on YouTube. I really liked the thought of our sister flying on the wind, brushing up against us when we feel a breeze. My oldest sister always thinks of our sister when she sees white butterflies. The original pillow project had fancy quilting in the middle, but I opted to applique a white butterfly which I knew would mean more. 

All the pinwheels and the butterfly are cut from our sister's shirts. The denim on top is from a pair of her jeans. The denim had such strong vertical line I had to pay close attention to orientation as a was cutting and sewing.

I used some lightweight denim I had in stash for the backing, but I added the back pockets from that pair of jeans onto it. 

That was my project from last week, but I couldn't show it until I gifted it. 

My sewing time this week is all about quillows. I have the tops done for three of the eight I'm making. I got one of those basted today. With Thanksgiving in a couple days it won't be a big quilting week. I am hoping to get the other two completed tops basted, but we'll see. I have managed to get all the others laid out, so now they are clipped together in rows all ready to assemble. 

I was asked for two green quillows, and I made multiple green quillows last year. That's a lot of green scrap strips. After making all the blocks for this one, I didn't have enough blocks for the second, but they had said green and/or orange. I don't have a lot of orange in my scraps, but enough to make the second green one work.

Now I'm completely out of green 1.5" and 2" strips. 

Do you ever get stuck on what to do with busy prints with white backgrounds? I'm talking way too busy to be good backgrounds. I opted to stick them all together. There are NO tonals in here, it's all color on white. 

I think it has a vintage look even though very few of the fabrics have a vintage type of print. 

I've really found making monochromatic quilts interesting. I'm sure if I planned a monocromatic quilt, one I purposely chose fabrics for, they'd probably have a completely different look (and I probably wouldn't make rail fence blocks either) I do find it a great way to bust scraps, and it's a pretty quick project for busting scraps. The quilts are much more interesting to look at than you'd think. The three quilts above all used 1.5" strips (1.5" cut, they finish at 1"). Last year most of the quillows I made used 2" strips but I've busted those now, and some of the colors I needed I didn't have in 1.5" strips either. I ended up going into my 2.5" strips for a couple.

I still made 6" finished blocks, so the 2.5" strips only needed three strips instead of the six strips needed for the 1.5" strips. It really changes the look of them, but they are still interesting.

Such simple blocks, a monochromatic color scheme, all random scraps, but still an interesting result. 

Since the quillows are only 48" wide, I decided to baste them on my new cutting station. What a difference basting at counter-height makes! No back pain or frequent breaks needed. I'll baste all my smaller quilts on the cutting station for sure!

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and stay healthy!