Oh How I Love to Stitch!

I made this little pillow for my dear sweet friend Linda. I started it months ago with the intention of giving it to her for Christmas. That did not happen. Several weeks ago I learned that she was coming to town (from California) and we made plans to have breakfast on Monday, so I was motivated to finish it before we got together.

After finding a font I liked, I printed out her name with the mirror image option selected on my printer. I then used a light table and traced her name with an iron on transfer marker. After ironing the design onto muslin, I thoroughly enjoyed hand stitching an outline in orange and then an outline of that in green. When stitching something for someone, I can't help but think of the recipient while embroidering - especially when their name is the focus of the project! Because she is such a special person and friend, this project brought me a lot of joy.

For the back, I used several fabrics that coordinated with the orange and green threads. When I bought these fabrics at The Old Craft Store in Carrollton, I had no idea what I was going to do with them. I didn't even decide that I would use them for this project until way after I had selected the orange and green thread for the stitching on the front. I machine pieced the back and then machine quilted it on my sewing machine. I sewed the two pieces together and stuffed with dried rosemary and peppermint.

When I put the pillow together (by putting right sides together and then turning it out) I made a couple of mistakes by getting the sewing machine stitches too close to the edge. Trying to cover up the mistakes, I sewed all the way around the edge of the pillow with green embroidery thread. Because of the thickness of the quilted back, it was difficult to stitch around the edge. My finger was quite sore! But, of course, I am ready to start working on another one.