Deanna from Little D and Me took the Kona Club Challenge this month and here is what she came up with! Deanna used the colors we sent out in January for Kona Club. Make this lovely Tangram Pillow and leave a comment on this post for a chance to win these lovely fat quarters!
Tangram Pillow
I’m Deanna Doornbos and I blog at
Little D and Me. I’m based in a small town north of Edmonton, AB, and have been dabbling in quilting for about 2 years now. I started sewing when my daughter, Little D, was born three years ago. I taught myself to make clothes for her, drafting patterns based on clothes she had and tutorials from other bloggers. My sewing has greatly improved since then - I've learned so much from others! I still sew a lot of clothes and have an Etsy shop where I sell dresses, but I've also caught the quilting bug.
When I was contacted by
Sew Sisters to make a tutorial for them using one of their Kona bundles, I was nervous because I'd never made or even tried to make a tutorial before. But since I love a challenge, I accepted and chose the Kona January bundle for the blue, a favourite colour of mine. I chose to make a pillow cover because I love that pillow covers give you the chance to make quilt blocks without making a whole quilt. I love points and angles right now, so when thinking about a design, I looked for something with different angles rather than all one shape. The Tangram puzzle came to mind and the challenge came to put the puzzle into fabric.
You will need:
Cutting Directions:
*because we are working with bias cuts I suggest starching your fabrics before cutting*
Set aside the square of
Lake.
Cut the remaining squares in half as triangles. From each, set aside one half and keep one half.
From the rectangle of
Pacific, cut off a 4 inch triangle as shown, so you end up with a parallelogram.
Instructions:
*all seams are a scant 1/4 inch*
*since we are working with bias cuts, you may need to ease fabrics into the right measurement, that's okay*
1. The pillow top is made of units that will get put together. The first unit is simply a triangle and a strip of
Ash.
- Measure and mark 0 and 11 inches on a strip of Ash. Match the marks to the points on the long side of the larger triangle of Water.
- Press toward the blue.
2. The second unit will be these pieces joined together.
- For the parallelogram, on a strip of Ash make a small mark with an erasable pen at the 0 and 8 1/4 inch mark.
- Match up the side of the parallelogram, as shown in the photo above, to the marked strip, keeping the points on the marks. Pin and sew, easing the pieces together if necessary.
- Press toward the blue.
- Do the same with the triangle of Algeria and the square of Lake, marking, pinning and sewing.
- Now join these three plus the small triangle of Water together.
- You will probably have to trim the small side of this strip. Just measure 1/4 inch from the circled joint of the Lake square and Ash strip and trim a straight line. You should only have to trim the Pacific parallelogram.
I pressed seams towards the blue, except one, simply to keep bulk down.
3. Now join the strip we just made to the triangle of Water.
A trick I used to get the parts lined up together is to first press down a quarter inch of the Ash strip that's on the triangle of Water. When it's folded over, snip off the corner bit and then when lining up the pieced strip, the angle of the strip of Ash should match up to the straightedge of the parallelogram.
- Press the seam up towards the Ash.
You should now have this:
Don't worry if things look a bit wobbly - it's because we sewed some pieces on the bias.
4. The last part to piece together are the two large triangles.
- Line up and sew the large triangle of Water to a strip of Ash.
- Trim the Ash as shown and line up the triangle of Pacific even with the straight edge of the triangle with strip attached.
5. The two halves have to be sewn together now.
- Take the longest strip of Ash cut from the long side of the FQ and sew it on to the two large triangles.
- To make sure we line up the to halves on the center line, mark the strip of Ash on the long strip so we can match it up to the strip of the other half.
- Match up the marks to the strip, ease together so the ends also match properly, pin and sew.
You now have the hard part done.
Because we've sewed on the bias, our block is a bit wobbly, so take some pattern weights (I use washers) and ease the block into a 15.5 inch square. Trim.
As you can see, I had to trim of some blue on the bottom as well.
6. Once you've trimmed the block, we're going to sew on the 1 inch Ash strips.
- Ease two sides into the 15.5 inch strips, pin and sew.
- Do the same for the other side, easing the block onto the 16.5 inch strips.
Your pillow top is now done! It should measure 16.5 inches square.
Quilt the top as you'd like using the 17 inch squares of lightweight low-loft batting and backing fabric. Trim to 16.5 inches.
7. For the back of the cover, I chose to do a zipper because I think it looks neat and clean and it's pretty simple to do. I won't reinvent the wheel here, but instead direct you to a great tutorial for zipper backs
here at Sew Mama Sew.
I chose to piece together some random leftover bits for one half and then I used leftover Ash for the other half. For the zipper flap I used a strip of Lake. I always like to choose a longer zipper than I really need, just because I like to trim off the metal bits.
Because I had pieced the bottom, I backed it with some fabric to protect all the seams. I did the same to the top piece of Ash, just because I like a good and sturdy cover.
Follow the tutorial and you should end up with this:
Don't trim the zipper ends yet.
Open up the zipper half way and match up the top to the back and pin in place and sew with a 1/4 inch seam allowance. Clip the corners and turn it right side out. Stuff it with a 16" pillow form and you're done!
Admire your new pillow and throw it on a chair.
Giveaway!
You could win 4 fat quarters of the Kona Cotton Solids Deanna used to make her Tangram Pillow!
Just leave a comment on this post for a chance to win.
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| Deanna chose the colors we sent out in January this year to our Kona Club members. |
If you are no-reply blogger please leave your email id in the post.
We will leave the giveaway open till Tuesday May 14th, 2013. Winner will be announced Wednesday, May 15th. Good luck everybody and enjoy making your very own Tangram Pillow!
