A little 4th of July sewing

If you are looking for my Accuquilt GO! Baby giveaway post, it can be found here.  There's still time to enter to win!!

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In the midst of family gatherings, cookouts and lots and lots of eating this weekend, I did manage to squeeze in a little quality time in my sewing room to whip up this set of pillows.  My youngest brother just moved into his first apartment with his girlfriend, and I thought they could use some quilted pillows to spruce up their new living space.  

A patient I was seeing at one of our satellite offices this past week told me about a local quilt shop that was less than 5 miles from said office.  Of course this made my day, and I had to make a pit stop to check out the selection on my way home.  I picked up a lot of the prints I ended up using in these pillows, some Deb Strain for Moda, some Origins by Basic Grey for Moda and some Verna by Kate Spain.  I mixed in some Denyse Schmidt Picnics and Fairgrounds and that brown Crosshatch Moda print as well as some Kona Bone from my stash too.

I whipped up some half square triangles using my GO! Baby and had this zig zag designed pillow completed in just a few hours.  Stay tuned for a tutorial later this week on some tips and tricks using the HST die to quickly put together this pillow.

I quilted the front of the pillow following the zig zag lines 1/4 inch on either side of the seam.  There is something so fresh and clean that I just love about echo quilting like this.  Aside from the fact that my walking foot must love to make my life miserable (I cannot for the life of me get consistent stitches when using it, no matter what I try, argh.) I actually committed a quilting no-no and just used my 1/4 inch foot to quilt this, with no problems, hooray!

I think this is my favorite pillow I've made in some time, and I kind of don't want to give it away!  I used Lee's herringbone block pattern which was featured in  this past issue of Fat Quarterly (you can get a subscription here), and adjusted the strip sizes to make it work for this pillow.  I have been wanting to make this block ever since I got the latest issue (back in April!) and finally found the perfect project to show off this awesome block!

I used the same fabrics that I used in the zig zag pillow and framed it in a border of Kona Bone.  Again, I echo quilted 1/4" on either side of each seam.  I think I see a herringbone pillow of my own in my near future.

Hopefully little brother likes the pillows!  Actually, hope little brother's girlfriend likes the pillows, as guys usually don't have quite the necessary appreciation for pretty decorative pillows... 

Hope everyone is having a great holiday weekend, Happy 4th of July!

I will be linking up to Sew Modern Monday over at Canoe Ridge Creations, stop by and checkout what everyone's up to!