Pillow Swap - Joy to Give & Receive

I really love reading and looking at the Dutch Sisters blog. I decided to sign up for their "Pillow that you Dream on" swap and really enjoyed the process.



My swap partner said she liked earthtones. I did a quick 'look and grab' through my stash and made a pile of browns. I threw in some golds and burgundy, but kept my usual brights away from the pile.



Then I started to play with scale. I really like this quick, no waste method to make whirlygigs. Lots of my pieces were small so I changed the size and made a smaller whirlygig.

Then I let the pile and the blocks sit a spell.

I wasn't sure I wanted to commit to a design with the small whirlgigs - they finished at 3 inches. My pillow cover needed to fit a 16 inch pillow - that's a lot of little whirlies!

Plus, earthtones - browns, don't excite me that much, at least, not on their own. I like contrast!

I was out walking in the early evening and happened to be going by some bush area. This time of year there is very little bright colour going on in nature. The lime green of falling leaves is over. Everything is quiet. But as I looked at the brush beside me I saw red berries, and small evergreens among the golden dying brush.

I realized that colour {and natural colours} aren't always intense. The shaded versions of my favoured brights gave me a wider colour palette to work from.





Then I spied this little beauty on the Temecula quilt blog.
I knew I had to go for it! The scrappy exchange of the background prints solved how I was going to make enough whirlygigs and keep a sense of cohesiveness between the blocks.


I also had fun cutting up this piece of fabric I've had for awhile now {I think I received it from my sister} This experience gave me a little insight into how repeat patterns are designed. I think fabric designers are brilliant - so many possibilities in a print!


Here are the pieces of the whirlygigs ready to be made into blocks.
At this point I was planning to put them beside each other and use the golden yellow as a border.




Here's what I did instead! I found another stripe in my stash {again, I think from my sister} and cut it up. If you look closely you can see I managed to cut two different types of stripe from the fabric - the vertical stripe has two darker green lines, the horizontal has a thin one with lighter background beside it.

Then, because my finished size was too small I had to add some strips of leftover tans.
Which I think turned out okay because when the pillow form is inserted. . .




The green border stays on the front of the pillow and my added tan strips become the 'side'.


My family really liked this pillow too.
I'm really glad it went to a good home!

And look what my partner sent me:

We love it!
My daughter said, "do we get to keep it?" LOL

I guess I make more things to give away then keep.

The chocolate is mine {all mine!} She also sent me some lovely soap from her farm.

Do you join in swaps? I think the giving is almost better than the receiving.
Almost!
Thanks, Shachar, for a great pillow and a wonderful swap experience.


With Joy,
Sarah Vee