Christmas Pillows

A friend asked if I could make some new pillow covers for her for Christmas.  Of course! 

For the first pillow I used wool felt, cut different sizes of circles, and added different kinds of embroidery stitches for fun.  I hand-sewed the circles on the background. I got the idea here.

My friend had some scraps left from some Christmas stockings she had made.  Because the pieces were so small, I had to do a pieced design.  I decided to make four wonky Christmas trees for this pillow.  I machine quilted around each tree and quilted some random stars.

And another felt design...found here.  This was definitely the quickest one to make.  I used fusible web and machine sewed around the edges.

After making the other scrap pillow, I was left with only tiny pieces. So I decided to make nine small blocks.  I cut different widths from the scraps.  After cutting squares of quilt batting a little larger than I needed, I sewed the scraps on, using a quilt-as-you-go method.  After each square was covered with fabric, I trimmed them to the right size and stitched them all together.

I REALLY wanted to keep each one of these pillows when it was finished, but it sure is fun to make them for a friend...and she loved them, too!