Quilted pillowcase

This is one project that's been on my to-do list for a looooong time. Two years ago we moved from Boston to our apartment on the North Shore, and then we went to Ikea. We got all kinds of furniture, including my lovely sewing desk and a chair. The chair I got has a plastic seat and I didn't think it'd be extremely comfortable after long hours at the sewing machine, so I bought a pillow form to go on it. After a while of using the pillow form "naked," I realized that it would be much better if I made a case for it, so I added that to my to do list. And that was about two years ago.

Finally, over Labor Day weekend, in my nearly unprecedented burst of productivity, I whipped this out. I used the leftover scraps from my (sort of) crazy quilt wedding gift for Jeff and Jen and raided some other solids from my stash. The backing of each side is muslin, and the batting are scraps also from the stash. It always feels nice to use up some of what I already have! I also finished some spools of variegated quilting threads on this project. I knew there wasn't much left, but it's always hard for me to estimate how much thread that is, and who throws away thread?? Not me.

So the front and back are pieced following the techniques used for the (sort of) crazy quilt. I ran out of scraps when doing the back so used gray to border the panel. Both front and back are quilted in free-motion curlicues, which were really fun once my machine and I got the tension figured out and got going on it. I stitched the case together, leaving a 6" or so opening, and then washed and dried it before inserting the pillow form and stitching it shut. I really like how it turned out. It makes my sewing desk just that much more inviting, and it felt awesome to use up those scraps I had sitting around for months and to finally cross something off my list. Of course, I added three more things to it, but still!

I also made mega progress on my Flickr swap mini-quilt. No pictures yet, but I finished the top on Sunday and just need quilting and binding. I'm hoping I can quilt it tonight or some other night during the week and then finish the binding and wash it over the weekend so I can send it out Monday.

A little bit of a side note here. I finished stitching the binding on my Little Bits quilt over the weekend. Actually, it was Sunday night during the Bears/Colts game. In the last three days, I've watched probably 24 hours of football. And I've loved it. For a number of reasons, I don't have a fantasy football team this year, but that's okay. I'm still really interested in watching my hometown team of the Packers, Brett Favre's new team the Jets, and my favorite quarterback (Jake Delhomme) and the Carolina Panthers. I got to see the entire Packers/Vikings game last night and the endings of the Jets and Panthers games on Sunday, and all my teams won! I'm so excited that football is back, and that I have a ton of handwork on my plate so I can plant myself in front of the TV every Sunday and still be productive. I went to bed last night after Denver's first drive, but that looks like it was a fun game. I'm a Jay Cutler fan, and this Royal guy looks like he's on track for a really good year already. Rob is already calling him "Royale with cheese."