Blogger’s Pillow Party

I know that many of you have seen this pillow but I have decided to join in on the Blogger’s Pillow Party over on Rachel’s blog.  If you remember I made this pillow for Kerri as part of The Pillow Talk Swap.  In this swap we are all assigned secret partners and given a list of likes/dislikes as well as an inspiration mosaic of their favorites.  This was the inspiration mosaic that I made for my partner:

And this was the mosaic that Kerri made for me:

 I noticed right away that Kerri had 3 different things I had made in her mosaic:  The 2nd picture from the left in both the first and second row and the last picture on the right in the 3rd row.  Since she didn’t know that I was her partner I was hoping that was a good sign that she liked my style & that I would be able to make something for her she would really like.  Kerri mentioned that she liked woodland animals and red/aqua–so, I started sleuthing around a little bit.  I came across some of her Etsy favorites and saw she had a number of cute little hooped applique/embroideries–so I had the idea to incorporate a whole bunch of them into one pillow.

Anyone who follows Kerri’s blog at all knows that she is a huge bunting/banner fan–so I knew right away that I wanted to do a banner for one of the little appliques.  I liked the idea of adding a bit more movement hence the little birdies outside the embroidery.  And that raccoon up there fits right into the woodland theme I was going for (plus he turned out cuter than some of my other woodland critter sketches–I had a whole bunch of deformed little critters going on for awhile). =)

I also knew right away that I wanted to add in a cute little mushroom house.  I originally had a hedgehog aside the house but the proportions just weren’t working for me so in the end I changed Mr. Hedgie into a clothesline–which gave me the opportunity to add in another bird.  The dandelion over there on the left was something I wanted to try–I wasn’t sure how it was going to look but I like the way it turned out.

I decided to add the hand quilting (pick stitching, chickie stitching, long stitching–are just a couple names I have recently heard this type of quilting called).  It’s something I had wanted to try and fits right into my like of embroidery–a nice little evening project after the kidders are in bed.

So, there you have it–a little bit more detailed explanation of what went into planning this pillow.  It was such a fun pillow to make!  Here is a picture that Kerri shared of all of her pillows received during the 4 rounds of Pillow Talk Swap: