Pillows: Punchneedle and Crazy

Its been a crazy time around here...I just simply couldn't seem to get anything going sewing-wise. I finished the 42 string pieced blocks for DS's quilt but discovered that I had only a 1/4 yard of black fabric for the sashing-clearly not enough and then the local quilt shop was out of black fabric!!! I ordered some on-line but that will take a while to get here. I thought I'd piece the back of the quilt...but that didn't work out-I always seemed to be 17" short no matter what fabric I pulled from the closet (I even thought of a square and rectangle pieced back but when I pulled fabric I liked together...I was 17" short (not 16" or 18"-kind of spooky! ) I finally decided for forget working on his quilt for now and turned by attentions to some small projects that have been waiting in the wings: two pillows.

Remember this punchneedle I did last spring? Well, here it is as a pillow with, I think, a cute little plaid ruffle. Don't think the anti sewing gremlins had gone away...I first made this pillow too large and had to redo! I had this foam pillow insert that I wanted to use so the pillow had to be the right size...I don't know what I did but after I took off the older cover (you can see how badly this needed to be replaced-I'm actually embarrassed to show this but you know, it suddenly completely deteriorated-last time I washed it, it was fine...ok from the looks of it that must have been awhile ago!)

I had promised to send a crazy quilt pillow to our friend Gabby in Germany. She took me to meet her seamtress and she insisted that I take some fancy fabric scraps...I've made 4 8" blocks and now really just have more embroidery to add.

A couple of years ago, I taught several crazy quilt classes and had the bottom two blocks (in class demo blocks) left over, so I only had two blocks to make. Most of the on-the-seam embroidery I did by machine except for the bottom right block where it is mostly by hand. On some of the on-the-seam machine embroidery, I added, by hand, french knots-it really makes it looks nice and doesn't take very long.

Now I'll mark some more designs on the larger fabrics (like the little teapot) and embroider them with DMC floss and I'll also add some silk ribbon bouquets...I saw a nice pattern with flowers trailing along a fence I think I want to do.

To view some wonderful close-ups of antique crazy quilts-stop by Julie Silber's blog and you may get a party idea too!