Blood Moon Pillow

I have participated in the last couple of rounds of the X-Factor Pillow Swap - the premise of this swap is that each round, you make a cushion based around a theme, and send a photo to the group admin, who posts it to the group (so you don't know who made which cushion). After the deadline for entries has passed, everyone ranks the entries in order of preference, and the person whose cushion got the most votes gets their first choice, the person whose cushion got the second most votes gets their first choice (if it's still available), and so on.

The theme for the most recent round was drunkard's path, and this is the pillow I made.

 

It's a pretty literal interpretation of the theme, but sometimes I think simple is better.  I cut the drunkard's path blocks using my friend Anne's Accuquilt machine and a die I bought, and used a selection of Umbrella Prints fabrics, solids and Essex linen.

 

With fairly simple piecing, I thought I should add a little bit of interest with the quilting.  I stitched in the ditch in grey thread to stabilise the piece, then hand quilted about 1/4" of an inch inside each circle. I used a variegated 12 weight thread from Wonderfil - it's one of my favourites at the moment.

 

I nearly stopped quilting there, but then I thought it would be fun to add some little quilted crosses a la Jen Kingwell (you can watch how she does this quilting here).  I'm really happy with how they turned out and I'd definitely put them on a quilt again.

 

This pillow is finished using the method set out in my covered zipper cushion back tutorial, using a slightly heavier weight fabric my dad bought in Japan. 

This pillow is heading off to its new home very shortly, and then I will wait with bated breath to see which pillow lands on my doorstep.