Hand-Pieced Block Pillow

Once upon a time...

 ...I participated in a hand-pieced quilt-along hosted by Erin @ Why Not Sew? (quilt-along info here)...

...and I had an "oopsie" block that came out too big...

... and so it has become a pillow :) 

It matches the quilt with a little bit of a black border with the larger black-spotted space (some of the blocks in my quilt needed a black border just to make them the 6 1/2" they were supposed to be! My hand-stitching wasn't always the most accurate!).

I quilted it with gold thread to match my left-over binding from another project. It has an easy envelope backing. Next time, I'll make the pillow covering a tad bit bigger as this one came out quite plump once I added the pillow form!

I'm still working on finishing this thing. It needs to be basted, quilted and bound... but then it will be ready to hang in my sewing room!

If you're bored and interested in seeing my progress on the quilt-along click here!

(Just a quick glance at my planning for this pillow... I love Grizz's engineering paper!)

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Happy Father's Day! (Gifts Overview)

Happy Father's Day to all the dads and grandpas out there... of course, a special shout out to my own dad, Grizz's dad and to Grizz's grandpas!

Dad is the major reason that Grizz and I butt heads during the NFL season. Grizz is a Vikings fan, through and through, and he's always hoping that I'll cheer for them as well. However, I grew up with a father who loved the Packers plus anybody who was going against the Vikings. Thus, there's no way that I'll ever cheer for the Minnesota Vike-Queens ;)

So, for Father's Day, I decided to make Dad a quillow with some Packers fabric with some solid green flannel. Whenever I was sewing something while growing up, Dad always asked me if I was sewing it for him. Well, it was finally time I sewed him something! Sadly, I did not get the pocket sewn to the main blanket... no matter what I tried - different needles, thread and tension - I couldn't get it sewn on without skipped stitches! It was pretty frustrating. Thankfully, Mom agreed to sew it on for me, so I sent it off. Thanks Mom!

 For Grizz's grandpas, I decided to do a similar gift to what I made the mother's for Mother's Day. I took photos from our wedding and used them to make a pillow covering with a pocket enclosure.

This was some of that non-cotton I took when I was helping a student's mother donate fabric to my church's quilting ladies. It's kind of a suede. It was more challenging to sew with than cotton, but I think it was worth it!

 It was fun to play with the photo fabric again. I love having projects that I can just pick fabric from my stash and throw them together into a cute project.

I hope the Grandpa's liked it! We are blessed to have them in our lives, so it was nice to be able to show them how much they mean to us by making them a little project.

I hope Grizz's dad doesn't feel left out! Grizz's sister called us earlier wondering if we wanted to go in with them to buy a gift. That worked out really well (besides, I'm not sure if I'd ever be able to use Vikings fabric to make anything, haha!).