Thursday, March 14, 2013

lesson learnt ...

 I made yet another pillow the other day. We did not need it since our house is flooded with patchwork pillows, but I had an idea floating in my head and I had to give it a try.


I made a scrappy strip of patchwork, sandwiched it between two strips of Kona blue, and I started quilting. And I mean quilting! - first I used white thread and quilted my would be pillow cover using very dense unequally spaced straight lines. Once that was done, I decided to switch to the lime/yellow variegated thread and quilted randomly between the white lines.


I must say, it looked pretty cool so I happily continued with my original plan for a pillow.


Once it was all finished, however, I realized that all that quilting made for a very stiff, not at all pleasantly squishy pillow. Dah!!! Pretty, but not useful. And, since I dislike not functional things very, very much, this called for some drastic measures.

Out came the seam ripper and a new idea popped into my head. Want to see? Ta-da!!!!


I turned the unappealing stiff pillow into a pouch. Not bad, right?


This lovely patchwork and heavy quilting suits the pouch so much better. It's nice and sturdy, and pretty stylish (in my own, totally biased opinion).


I just love this bright yellow metal zipper, and I even remembered to add a charm for a zipper pull.

Finished size of the pouch is 5.5" x 9.5".

All in all, I'm going to call this a pretty successful experience. And, I still have one more piece of this quilted patchwork left, it really wants to become a needle book, but on that later.

Thanks so much for reading. Have a lovely day everyone.

51 comments:

  1. What an awesome pouch!! It's beautiful with all of that quilting. I'm in love with metal zippers.

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  2. love that neon-y quilting , great save !!

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  3. Lovely! I wish my brain thought that way. Make lemonade out of lemons type of thinking. I would get frustrated, disappointed, and the pillow would have ended up in the back of my UFO closet!
    :o)

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  4. Great idea, the quilting in two colours is so beautiful!

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  5. Fab cushion pouch! ;o) Love the stitch detailing and colours, really zingy.

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  6. Oh, great save! I like it even better as a zippy. Love your little tab too. Thanks for sharing the lesson.

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  7. Beautiful pillow and pouch. Love the quilting you did in the lemon.

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  8. So great!!Any tiny bit of pieces are great for any make.. I love all the quilting lines, very very bright~

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  9. Great idea! It makes a perfect pouch :)

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  10. What a beautiful pouch! Where did you get your cute charm?

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  11. I'm glad you found a good way to put that pillow to use, that quilting is too gorgeous to go to waste!

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  12. Wow, such a perfect solution. I probably wouldn't have thought of it...

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  13. How craftastic are you? That was a great idea. I love the zipper pull, where did you get it?

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  14. This is wonderful! Love it!

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  15. I am relieved you found a great solution without ripping the quilting, which is where I thought you were going at first! I just read someone blog about ripping all the quilting out of a CUSTOM QUILTED QUILT because the backing had been turned the wrong way (can't remember who that was), and I just couldn't believe it. I think -- I guess I can't say until I'm in that situation, but I think -- I would have to just consider the mistake a part of the fate of the quilt at that point. But to each his own, more power to her.

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  16. It is beautiful and you are so clever!! Love the yellow metal zipper!

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  17. oh this is great! VERY pretty indeed!

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  18. Awesome pouch, I really like it when it was a pillow. The quilting looks so amazing.

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  19. Totally inspiring!
    Fantastic quilting and gorgeous pouch!

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  20. Pretty successful...it's a triumph! I liked it as a pillow actually! But I definitely love it as a zippy pouch!

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  21. You're a genius, my friend. Brilliant AND gorgeous!

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  22. Good save!!! It's a great pouch.

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  23. Ohhhh I love the pillow, but if it wasn't useful, the recycling is great, the pouches are wonderful!!
    I need to learn patchwork!!!

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  24. Your mistake leads to a new idea! I want to try quilting densely for making a sturdy pouch! I love your simple patchwork...just loooove it.

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  25. I've done that with a too densely quilted pillow too! Your idea for turning it into a pouch is genius!

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  26. That's so beautiful and perfect! Often puches are too soft but you resolved that problem too!

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  27. It made a beautiful pillow but it absolutely ROCKS as a pouch!

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  28. I love the effect of the variegated thread mixed with the white! Great save.

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  29. Great solution and I love the quilting with the yellow and green thread.

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  30. I love that effect from the variegated thread on the solid fabric! Great idea!

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  31. Lovely save. The pouch is perfect and the texture from the quilting is wonderful.

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  32. Turned out to be a wonderful little bag!! I love your use of different colored thread.

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  33. I like both - the pillow and the pouch. I understand what you mean. I finished a pillow some time ago and am not satisfied with it because the quilting makes it stiff, too. So the next pillow was handquilted and is so much softer. Lesson learnt, too. I am amazed that you pulled your seam ripper out. I don't know whether I could have done that.

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  34. Svetlanko, ale prosite to mas zajimave, kombinace barev niti je opravdu pekna! No a to ze jsi povlak nakonec premenila v tasticku... skvely vysledek! :) Tasticek totiz nikdy neni dost :) Krasnou nedeli, Jola

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  35. The pouch is lovely as was the pillow. I wonder if it would have softened up if you had washed it, I am a big fan of such dense quilting and when I wash the minis they soften right up for me.

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  36. Glad your pillow experiment didn't go to waste - it makes a gorgeous pouch :)

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  37. I have heard of finding ingenious new applications for inherited or vintage keepsakes, but I didn't realize a couple minutes on the shelf and it is ready for a redo! Great application of the pillow into a pouch. I really love the quilting you did as well. I have been meaning to buy some variegated quilting thread and your project has convinced me that it is worth it when you have a modern patchwork project like yours. Inspiring!

    (by the way this is my first time visiting (through Finish it up Friday) and I'll be sure to visit in the future to see what other great ideas you come up with!)

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  38. brilliant use of what could have become a UFO.

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  39. Love the pouch and maybe the cushion would work if you left off the white quilting and just went with that gorgeous green !

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  40. I absolutely love your gorgeous pouch!!! Could you share with us how you created your lovely zip pull?

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