Quilted pillow in reds

...or 'In Which I Learn That Perfectly Straight Is Much Harder Than Wonky'

I'm gradually trying to replace the grey-patterned pillows on our couch with lighter and more interesting covers. For my second one I decided to have a go with white and a pop of colour, and went with red scraps I have left over from my red quilt. I used the Picket Fence tutorial over at Made On Maple to get me started

Source: madeonmaple.blogspot.com via Hazelnuts on Pinterest

with some inspiration from Oh Fransson's Chopped Vegetables pattern.

Source: ohfransson.bigcartel.com via Hazelnuts on Pinterest

So the wonky thing - both the inspirations are wonky, but I thought I'd rather go with the more traditional stacked coin look and cut everything nice and straight. The thing with that though, is if your linen fabric (the white) is stretchier than the coloured cottons, then it won't come out perfectly straight no matter how hard you try. So you end up with something that is neither wonky nor completely straight! The pillow is close enough really and only I'll know to look at it, but a good lesson to learn :) The linen does have a lovely sheen to it though, which doesn't come through in the photos.

I was really pleased to be able to use some of my 'In the Neighbourhood' houses fabric from Ruby in the Dust - I didn't get it in time to use in my red quilt. My other favourite in here is the Kei Honeycomb dots, there's something perfect about that fabric! I've almost used it all up, but luckily the FQ I won at the Modern Quilt Guild is virtually the same, so I'm not totally out of red with big fat white spots (thank goodness, it's my all-time favourite design).

Family reactions: Mat refuses to commit to any particular colour scheme in the living room, but has said he thinks there's enough red (the curtains are quite a heavy red and the rug is a red Persian one) so I think my next pillow will be blue.  When she saw me holding the cushion after photographing it, Hazel paused in a stream of chatter about ponies or something like that to say "that's good work you know" and went back to chattering. That's one thing good thing they don't generally tell you about having kids - they make you laugh!