I haven’t been embroidering much lately because I caught the quilting bug. In late 2020, I took an excellent online class with Marlee Grace called A Quilt is a Human Thing, an introduction to improv quilting. Along with the instructional support of a few other contemporary fiber artists, Grace led a course that walked you through the basics of quilt construction for true beginners. Focusing on the play of quilt construction rather than on the technical skills helped me get over any intimidation I felt around sewing and the sewing machine, and since then, quilts are the medium that move me.
I wanted to experiment with putting some of my embroidery work in other pieces. I put together this quilted 20″ x 20″ pillow this weekend using an older embroidery piece that I took out of a hoop.
I used the embroidery as the center of a large log cabin block and quilted it to some scraps of batting. I finished it with some big stitch quilting. For the quilting on the back panel, I improvised a spiderweb. It’s not perfect but it does the job.
(I made my daughter some Simpsons PJs this weekend and she wanted to make sure they made it to the photo shoot.)
After sewing the two sides together, I finished it with some stripey binding.
So hey! A throw pillow. Now that I worked this process out, I have a couple more in the queue.
