FF: Star Pillow

A few moons ago, I made a quilt for my dad with the aid of the lovely ladies of Stash Bee hive 8 from 2015. I wound up with one extra quilt block, and as I knew my dad intended to hang the quilt I made for him on the wall, I didn't want to put it on the back where it would never see the light of day. The solution? A pillow cover!

This block, by the way is the Glorious Autumn Star block from Fresh Lemons Quilts.

Over the course of a couple of weeks, I slowly added two borders to the original 12" block. I'm not gonna lie, this is a LOT of white for me. (I find this really amusing because I know a lot of people would be totally comfortable with this amount of white, but to me, it's intense. Terrifying, even. What kind of quilting dare I use? Can I handle the white? Most important: can I keep it away from my children??

I decided pretty early I was going to FMQ this bad boy, but it wasn't until I sat down and started sewing that I figured out what kind of designs I wanted to use. The pebbles in the center star seemed smart, but I have had a messy time with pebbles in the past, and did I really want to go through that again? I decided to give it a go--aren't pillow covers meant to be a good testing place for FMQ?--and I'm happy to report that it went well. Then came some infinity loops, and I finished off the outer white border with straight line quilting. I briefly considered doing feathers there, but the border is only 2", and I wanted a bit more space to do them justice.

Here's the weird thing: the more time I spend on actually quilting my stuff, the more I LIKE it. I used to DESPISE the quilting bit. Straight lines, echo quilting, get it done, baddaboom. And when I first started FMQ, I was so depressed. It looked horrible! I'm not saying it looks genius now, but it looks a whole lot better than my first attempts, and I guess I have to 'fess up that when peeps say it will get better with practice, they're telling the truth.

(And can I just say that the texture of this cushion is amazing? It just feels so cool!)

I backed this pillow cover with a simple envelope closure using a leftover striped sheet of my dad's. I'll be sending it off to him as a super late Christmas gift. Also, this is finish #1 from my Q1 FAL list, and I'm excited to report that I have not one, but TWO more finishes to share with you. Woo!