Fifth, final, winner!

Anyone who knows me also knows I love making quilted pillows! So how could I resist the pillow-making contest hosted by Modern Makers Retreat - especially one with the hashtag #mmrcushionpalooza! Fun! The parameters were pretty simple - make a pillow, or two or more, in the month of September and post it on Instagram.

I ended up making five in total. The first was the blue heart pillow for my neighbours who said goodbye to their beloved old beagle, next came a matching duo that were quilted tops just needing to be made into pillows, and then my rainbow herringbone pillow. That was the pillow I made specifically for the contest and I thought I was done because I was pleased as punch with it. But then I squeezed in one more in the final days.

And finally I made good use of a bunch of my hoarded Carolyn Friedlander prints for this vibrant, spring-feeling pillow.

I love everything about this pillow! I'm not a big yellow fan, but that's my favourite part! And I jumped right into the deep end by making that the border. It just was so wonderfully bold against the teal binding.

Simple straight-line quilting with a light blue thread fit the bill perfectly. I varied the spacing a bit, starting with a line down the middle of each row and then adding on each side. That took a fair bit of time and I'm not sure it was worth the effort because it's a bit lost in the overall effect. Likely, though, if I had just gone for evenly spaced quilting starting at one side and going across the pillow, the quilting lines would have soon been wonky compared to the piecing lines.

The pattern looks quite complicated, but it's just squares, HST and four-patch turned on-point. I saw something similar on a quilt while scrolling through Instagram a while back and filed the idea away. The only tough part was slicing off the edges to make it square. But, being me, I saved those pretty bits and have another fun project underway!

I was quite surprised and thrilled to discover it was chosen as one of 10 pillows out of more than 230 entered to win a prize in the contest! My win was in the honourable mentions category, but it's wonderful to even be mentioned considering all the amazing pillows entered! Next time you're on Instagram, be sure to check out the hashtag to see all the beauties!