A Sorta-Fast Sparkling Holiday Pillow–A FREE Downloadable Pattern (Part II)
Greetings from the lunatic fringe! There’s nothing like a beckoning blog post deadline to inspire an all-and-out sprint into crafting insanity. In the last post I promised a winter holiday variation of my pillow pattern and so I had to fulfill that commitment . . . didn’t I?
505 Spray and Fix (www.sprayandfix.com): Long-arm machine quilter Elaine Beattie turned me on to this aerosol glue. In this case it worked wonderfully to adhere the paper template securely (yet not permanently) to the fabric for machine embroidery.
Golden Threads Quilting Paper 18” wide (http://www.goldenthreads.com): I traced my 16” x 16” hand-drawn pattern onto the paper, tacked it to the fabric with spray glue, and traced the design with a darning foot. Easy! Although next time I’ll adhere it to the wrong side of the fabric so I won’t go cross-eyed picking tiny paper shreds from overlapping thread lines after I’ve torn off the pattern paper.
Superior Threads (www.superiorthreads.com): Variegated thread in honey to bronze tones. Selected King Tut #991.
So, to recap, click the Pattern Library tab and scroll to the winter variation of the holiday pattern. Use the Autumn variation to build the pillow and the Winter variation (Part II) to embellish it.
Okay, I know “easy” is a relative term; but really, this is an achievable project with dazzling results. I drew the pattern freehand (so you can do it as well) and the beading only took a couple of afternoons this past weekend. Nothing crazy. Here’s a time-saving hint for beading: load a few beads onto the needle at a time and then tack them onto the fabric with a basting stitch (3 beads is optimal and gaps of 1/8” to 1/4” look natural). “Lock off” a run of beads (maybe 2” or so) with a back-stitch for reinforcement. That’s it: go forth and build a beaded pillow!
