Rudy | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Once again, I changed the fabric and fibers
Here's a list of my substitutions:
I stitched up "Rudy" thinking that I'd finish him as another ornament. The chart is 37 x 64 — so it's a little bigger than ornament size when stitched on 14ct Fiddler's Cloth. Thus, I made the decision to finish him as a pillow. I'm really proud of my finishing job on this one! I bought some cotton fat quarters and nylon cording (with the lip attached for ease of stitching into a seam) at my local Wal-Mart. I'd been drooling over some of their pre-packaged fat quarters, and now had an excuse to buy a bundle. As the clerk was measuring the cording, we started talking. She was wearing a T-shirt with a cross-stitch design. I asked if she was a stitcher. The clerk said, "I used to cross-stitch a lot, but the quilting bug got hold of me and hasn't let go yet." As we carried on our conversation, she taught me a thing or two about a quilting technique I've been wanting to learn. (Stay tuned — I feel a "string piecing" quilting project is about to come to life!) When I got home, I pressed and cut my fat quarters into strips. I used a 2-1/2" strip for the green inner border, and a 3" strip for the red outer border. I pieced the front in a way that would allow me to have the most amount of fabric possible left over for the back. The back of the pillow is a solid piece of the green fabric. The cording looks GREAT against the green. I rounded my corners first, using a ball of twine as my template. Then I pinned and machine-basted the cording to the edge of the pillow back using the zipper foot on the sewing machine. The zipper foot allowed me to sew very close to the lip of the cording. I was able to position the cording "just so" and tuck the (very frayable) ends into the pillow back on the bottom edge of the pillow. I then pinned the pillow front to the back, shortened my machine stitch, and stitched the pillow front to the pillow back. Since the cording ends were at the pillow bottom and I didn't want to have to mess with that by hand, I left the opening of the pillow at the top. This completed the shell of the pillow. Next, I turned my attention to the inner pillow. I made it out of muslin and some old fiberfill (loose) stuffing I had in my stash. I decided to make an inner pillow rather than just stuff the pillow shell because I didn't want any of the stuffing to leak out of the holes in the Fiddler's Cloth. Also, if I ever need to clean the pillow shell, I can simply remove the inner pillow. I slid the inner pillow into the pillow shell, then stitched the opening by hand using a blind stitch. The finished size is about 12" x 13". This is the most professional looking pillow I've ever completed. I'm not sure if I'll keep it or donate it to the diabetes auction. He's so cute, I may have to keep him around.
4 My Boys
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