The patterns come from The Quilt Company in Pennsylvania and are available at many quilt shops. They make some very nice patterns and I especially like these.
I didn't follow the pattern completely and the reason is that I wanted to save the step of quilting it.
First of all I cut a piece of cotton that will be used for background just a smidge larger than the pattern calls for because sometimes the quilting will make your project a little smaller. Using my frixion pen, I traced the greenery pattern onto it.
Second, I cut a piece of very thin cotton (something you wondered why you bought it and is not good enough to put into a quilt). I cut it about 14" x 18". On top of that I put a piece of thin batting about the same size. Then I centered the background piece on top.
These 3 pieces can be sprayed with 505 or something of that nature to keep the sandwich together, or, you can baste around the area to be embroidered.
I used Sulky 12 wt. thread and starting at one end, I stitched to the first branch, then up that branch and back down right on top of my first row of stitching. Then I went along the main branch to the next branch. If there were branches coming off, I would go up the little branch, back to where I veered off, then to the end of the branch and back to the main branch, always sewing right on top of the previous stitching. If I went off, I didn't worry - it's a tree branch and they can go any which way. When I got to the end of the main branch, I turned around and did a second row of stitching along that main branch. If I made an error, I just left a tail of thread I could weave in and started again. When I was all finished, I pulled the thread ends to the back and tied them off.
After the branch was sewn, I drew a line around it, the size the fabric was supposed to be in the first place. Remember, I cut this piece larger in case sewing the branches made this piece smaller.
Borders are cut to a specific size as per the pattern. First the small red border. I used the line I drew to simulate the edge of the background fabric.
There are a couple of ways to finish the pillow but I just followed the instructions to have one piece fold over the other. It worked just fine for me.
Before turning the pillow right side out, I did a zig-zag stitch all around the raw edges, clipped the corners and turned.
Here is one of the pillows finished. Really cute!
I enjoyed making mine and hope you will too.
Hope everyone has had a nice week-end and may your bobbins always be full!
Cheers
OMGosh...adorable!! And you made it look so easy too!
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It really is easy. Try one, you'll see.
DeleteCute!! Thanks for the tutorial.
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