Christmas Gift Sewing Part 1: Pillows

I'm pretty much done with pillows for a while. I've made a lot in the last two months and I've had my fill.

I made two more cathedral windows pillows for my sister-in-law and brother-in-law's living room for Christmas. I had a harder time with these two pillows than my first foray into cathedral windows because the colors are not me. This is a good example of when sewing is hard to do when you don't love the fabrics or colors you're working with.







I bought some photo fabric to make a quilt for my sister. When I was 12 and she was 16, she got a black lab mix puppy. She named him Tucker and he quickly became part of the family. He was the most mellow dog and so affectionate. Three years ago, he got cancer. About six months later, my sister had to put him down. I was 25. We had had Tucker for 13 years. He was my sister's best friend and I really wanted to make her a quilt with photos of Tucker on it. Unfortunately, while I was making the blocks for the quilt, the ink got distorted when I sprayed water on it. So I had to scrap the quilt idea and go with a pillow instead.



Wasn't he a good-looking dog?



On the back, I included a photo of my sister and Tucker. I love this picture of them together and I thought it would be a good memory to have on the pillow.



Back in October, I saw Christina's owl and apple blocks that she hand-stamped (you can check them out here, here, here, here, and here). I grabbed a couple up and went to work making pillows. This apple pillow was for my mom's friend, who spoils my kids rotten on their birthdays and at Christmas.



I bought two of the owl prints, knowing that I wanted to keep one for myself (which I'll make into a pillow one day) and one for my sister (who LOVES owls). I added some hand-stitching around the owl for her pillow.







And here are all the pillows nicely stacked.



I made one other pillow that I didn't get photographed before giving it to the mister's aunt for Christmas, but it was a simple pillow made entirely out of this green spring print by Jessica Jones (shown at the bottom).



*Update: I found a photo.



Sewing all these pillows was good practice. I think I've got envelope backs down pat. But, like I said, I need a little bit of a break from making pillows, although I am working on one more this week. It will be nice to be able to start quilting again. I've missed that.