Celebration of Life Pillow

Six years ago on December 31, 2004 my sweet nephew, Caleb, passed away from medulloblastoma. He was 8 months old. Every year, the mister's brother and his wife have a Celebration of Life gathering on New Year's Eve. Caleb is always on my mind, but especially during the holidays. This year, I wanted to make a pillow for my sister-in-law just to let her know that we've been thinking about and praying for her and her family.

When I made the pillow for the Pillow Talk Swap, my sister-in-law mentioned that she loved the wonky star and the elephant I embroidered on the back. Her favorite colors are blue, purple, and green, so I used some Verna, Hope Valley, and Nicey Jane fabrics with those colors. I also used this pillow to practice my free motion quilting (my skills need lots of work). I used some contrasting vintage thread that my mom's friend gave me. It was on a teeny wooden spool and it was surprisingly smooth to quilt with.



I used a heavy-weight embroidery floss for the elephant and her baby. It almost feels like the crochet thread that you use to crochet around flannel baby blankets (whatever that's called - help me out someone).



I think I mentioned that my sister drew the mama and baby elephant for me. We're actually in the process of making a few sets of embroidery patterns to sell in our very own shop! I'll have more information as we get closer, but let me know if you're interested in some fun [modern] embroidery patterns!

Finished Pillow Talk Swap Pillow Revealed

So I was planning on waiting until my partner received this pillow before posting the full image shots, but since a blizzard is on its way (who knows if I'll lose power) and the pillow is due to arrive on my partner's doorstep tomorrow, I figured I'd go ahead. Besides, I've never been that good at waiting patiently anyway.



The pillow came out pretty much exactly as I had sketched it. Although, I made a mistake that I didn't catch until the pillow was completely finished. Can you see it? (The butterfly block on the right side of the second row was supposed to be in the middle position on the bottom row where the elephant block is and vice versa. But since the people I asked couldn't pin point the mistake, I decided to just leave it as is.)

For the back, I stitched a baby elephant holding its mama's tail onto some linen/cotton blend fabric, which I also used as the sashing on the front. I initially planned on using a yellow kei honeycomb dot for the other half of the back, but then decided those yellow elephants needed to be there instead.



My sister drew this cute little elephant for me and then I printed it out, traced it onto my fabric and tried stichery/embroidery for the first time. A girl in my quilt guild pointed me to the Stitch School blog, which has really great instructions for different types of stitches. I'm not into some of the traditional embroidery styles, but it will be fun to try other stitches on other projects.



So there you have it. It was so much fun participating in this swap. I hope my partner loves the pillow as much as I do...I almost didn't want to part with it.