pillow talk swap 7 pillow ( a very long journey)

This is the Sparkle Punch pillow I made for my partner in The Pillow Talk Swap 7.

Making it was a fun but very bumpy journey. I don't think I've ever had so much trouble with anything I worked on.

The only thing I was sure about from the very beginning was using Kona Ash as that was my partner's favorite solid color.  I dove right in and went for paper pieced flying geese using one of my very favorite fabric lines Moda Half Moon Modern. This is the pillow I made.

I like it and think it's really pretty, I was just afraid that it was too simple and my partner would not like it. So, it was back to the drawing board. Try #2 was this block.

I used Faith's tutorial for this paper pieced block. And, although I like the block, I did not like the colors I chose. So, once again, I had nothing. I went back to "stalking" my partner's Pinterest and Flickr favorites and I found lots of Sparkle Punch projects in there.

That's where my final try #3 comes in. I made the top without any hiccups and was really pleased with it, until I realized I had no clue how to quilt it. 

My questioning myself and indecisiveness caused me to quilt the pillow 4!!!! different ways and to rip it all out every single time. See what I mean by a long, crazy journey? I decided it was best to let it sit on my design wall for a while and let me think about it because I was not going to quilt it for the 5th time just to be ripping it all out again!

I went back to working on it a few days later and I finally had a plan, do some simple hand quilting inside each star. The pillow was busy enough, I did not want the quilting to take away from my stars.

After that the sewing went better, I chose striped fabric in coordinating colors for the back, installed the zipper, and finished the pillow off using turquoise binding. 

Phew!!!! It was done, finished at 20" x 20", ready to be sent off to its future home. I like the way it turned out and I'm pretty sure I'll be making another Sparkle Punch pillow for our family room soon. Now, I just really, really hope my partner likes it.

Hope you have a nice and relaxing evening, Svetlana.