Crow Pillow

Renee Plains is one of my favorite designers and I have been meaning to make a project from her “Bird In the Hand” book.   This little pillow attracted me because it was small and featured needle-turn applique – a technique I’ve been wanting to try for awhile.

The original project features the word “Bird” across the top, but I change mine to say “Crow.”  I also made the linen square in the bottom left larger and embroidered the word “buttons” – I thought this added a nice touch.  Finally, I added a few french knots on the strawberry so it looked like it had seeds (the lighting is not so great so it is hard to see the berry agains the red background).

Sharon at Liberty Rose was kind enough to show me the basics of needle-turn applique, and it is really isn’t as difficult as it seems.  I do agree it will take some practice to get good at it so that my appliques look nice and have tiny stitches.  However, if I can learn how to do it well, it will save me a lot of time!  I have done both the templar/starch method (tutorial by Suppose Quilt Boutique) and freezer paper method (tutorial by the Golden Thimble) and find these both to be time consuming since a lot of time is spent “prepping” the shapes before they are sewn onto the background.

Both of these methods are easier for newbies to use since they eliminate a lot of the guess work of how much of the edge you need to turn under before you sew.  One reason why I really enjoy wool applique is because you can just cut and stitch – no extra steps to get the shapes ready – so projects can go pretty quickly.

Also, I have been doing a major clean out of my sewing room and will be having a crafter’s/quilter’s yard sale in a few weeks.  I plan to sell off part of my stash and other miscellaneous crafting supplies that I haven’t used for at least a year.  If you are interested in finding out the details, please email me (email link in the upper right of my blog).

Keep it Thimble!