Colorways by Vicki Welsh

I’m now back to the memory quilt project.  Zane left 9 siblings and his quilt left a lot of fabric. I felt a need to make something with all that fabric for his siblings. I originally thought about bed runners but wasn’t sure how they might be used. Then I thought about placemats but would they really want to risk food stains? After too much time pondering, I finally got to the right answer. A pillow would be like receiving a hug from their brother.

Then, as is my habit, I spent too long thinking about complicated designs.

One night in Tucson I was awake and worrying about things I can’t control.  I made myself start thinking about something productive,  the pillowdesign. Soon I had the answer and was back asleep.

I settled on a 15″ patchwork pillow and would use the Cricut to add some meaningful iconography. Zane’s Mom provided me with the iconography ideas without knowing what I was doing with them.

I cut 3.5″ squares from 25 different fabrics.

Thank goodness I only cut out 1 to start. I thought I could get away without interfacing the knits. I was wrong.

Before I cut the rest of the pieces I’ll interface the fabric first.

I expect these pillows to be used so after I pieced the top, I top-stitched the top to a piece of thin batting with scrim. This batting has been hanging out in my stash a long time just waiting for this project.

My goal is to use nothing but his clothing for every part. The backs will be random pieced from leftovers. I’ll use the shirt button packets as the closure for as many quilts as I can. The rest will get zippers.

I’m really happy with the way it turned out.

I ordered the pillow forms online and this is how 12 pillows arrived. Since I had to get a dozen pillow forms, I’ll make 12 pillows.  That will give them a few for other close people.  With assembly line techniques, these shouldn’t take too long.

We’re supposed to get more snow this weekend but I  got these photos taken while the Lenten Roses and Daffodils get covered again.