Pillow Talk

I had a request for a custom pillow recently. There was special meaning to a particular striped, knit t-shirt, and so he wanted to have me make it up into a pillow to give to his sweetheart. In fact, this was the shirt he was wearing when he proposed. What an endearing act of love to have it sewn into a remembrance pillow!

I couldn't say no, but I was having the hardest time trying to decide how to turn this knit fabric into a structured pillow top.  He wanted it for Valentine's Day, so I dug in to get the job done.

My first roadblock came when I cut out one side of the shirt, and the knit was totally wonky. The strips skewed badly, and no matter of stretching was going to bring it back into alignment. So I ditched that, and tried cutting out the backside. Ah, much better!  But not a lot of fabric to work with.

So, I decided to make an oblong pillow, and add some scrappy patchwork strips. You can't tell real well from the photo, but the patchwork strips are staggered, to give it a little interest. It worked!

Except that I was ever so slightly shy on having enough knit fabric for the last panel (far right).  So, by this point in time, I just clipped off a section from left-over knit fabric, aligned it to match the striping, and stitched it right in.  Whew! You have to look closely to even see it has been patched. Of course, I pointed out this little flaw to the new owner, because that is just my nature. They loved it anyway!

It did my heart good to make this project for these newlyweds. It put a little spark in their Valentine's celebration.

Quilting with a smile,
Barb

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