The Friendship Quilt Along! the “Warm’ block

Have you been following along with the Friendship Quilt along? Amanda Herring has made the nicest quilt pattern that emphasizes all sorts of positive traits that quilters have. I’ve been feeling kind of down lately, and it is SO NICE to work on these blocks a bit at a time and reflect. This last week’s beautiful block looks like a little sun, perfect for the theme of the block! I did the 12″ version and decided to turn it into a bit of a meditation on what that means for our household, which I lovingly dub “Casa Chaos”.

See, I’m not the best housekeeper in the world, and neither is my fella. As a result, having house guests over just seems too much! I don’t want to feel embarrassed over the fact that, well, we are a family of absent-minded creative types who would rather be doing anything else but cleaning. As I thought about what “warm” meant, to me it became a metaphor for the kind of space I want: warm, inviting, and open to having friends over at the drop of a hat. A gal can dream.

And with that, suddenly my block became a pillow. Because of course you want a comfy seat for your friends to sit, right? Right! And what better way than to use some of my favorite hoarded fabrics? The background and solid colors are Indah batik, and the print is from an old line by Tina Givens.

The amazing fabric I used for the fussy cutting on the pillow and on the back makes me happy, too. And as you can see, I love that deep ocean blue color since it’s what we painted our living room.

So, let’s talk pillow corners for a second. I don’t like trimming them because I always feel like I’ll snip to close and cut something off. Instead, I simply fold my corners along the seam lines, like this:

Then press the fold, so it’s nice and creased.

So I only unfolded it to show you how creased it was.  When you turn the pillow, you want to KEEP THAT FOLD. what it does is make a nice squared corner and the seam is protected. I did a mediocre job of turning it inside out, but look at those corners! I didn’t even poke at them with anything, yet:

I don’t often make smaller projects, but this one was super satisfying and really rejuvenated me. I am looking forward to another one in August!  How about you? Are you a big-project-only type of person or a more ecumenical maker?

 

Thanks for stopping by! If you like my tips and tricks, make sure to check out my other tutorials. Happy making!