Project Quilting 16.2: Ombre

 

Another round of Project Quilting is complete!  While I didn't start this week off by being trapped in an airport, the kids did have a bonus "cold day" off of school when the windchill was around 40 below in the morning.  If the next challenge could start off with just a nice, normal week, I'd really appreciate it!  For this challenge, however, I instantly knew what I was going to make: a fun string pillow like all the ones Molli Sparkles has been posting on Instagram this month.  I was really hoping one of the six challenges would match up with this and ombre felt like the perfect fit.  I polled my children on a color scheme and they collectively decided on "red to pink with a neon back."

X is yelling "Ta-da!" if you can't hear him.

I had a lot of fun making this pillow.  It was a small project, but I experimented with three new things.  First, I've never made my own ombre before.  Next, I don't think I've ever done a string project larger than a 6" block before.  Finally, it was my first time using the "quilt as you go method" - it felt like cheating to be done with the quilting part at the same time I finished the piecing part!  I did make the project more difficult for myself by only using scraps and avoiding any fabrics with a white pattern on it (those tiny flowers are actually gray so they just barely made it in).  Here's a side-by-side comparison of the finished top I made to see how successful my ombre actually was.

Not bad considering I was just making it up as I went along.  I also delivered on the neon part of the request; I recently bought a yard of what I thought was an orange check but was actually a neon orange check.  This was a great way to use it up and get it out of my sewing room.

This photo is from the inside before I turned the pillow around.  I do all of my pillows with an envelope closure and no raw edges and I thought the leftover cassette tapes from the back of my Windsuit quilt went well with the neon.  It's like an Easter Egg for myself because no one will ever see them again unless they are changing out the pillow form for some reason.  Speaking of which, I normally make my own pillow forms from batting scraps, but this time around I used the form that came in my Reindeer Mini Quilt Advent Calendar.  Between that and the quilt-as-you-go, this came together in just two days.

I'm happy to report that the pillow has already been claimed by one of my children which means that maybe I need to make a few more.  I definitely have enough batting scraps laying around to fill a good number of them!  If you are interested in how I finish my pillows, the tutorial for it is included in my Shadow Pinwheel pattern, which I've put on sale this week if you purchase it through my BluePip pattern shop.  Thanks for stopping by!  I'm linking up my successful finish at the Project Quilting link party!