Two Gazillion Gathers

Last week, I blogged about my Wave Illusions pillow that I made for the Fabric-by-Fabric One-Yard Wonders sew along.  Now, I can proudly say that I have completed the second pillow for March.

Those who are paying attention may notice that this is my second Gazillions of Gathers pillow (the first is blogged here), but I did do a few things differently this time.  The first Gazillions of Gathers pillow that I made, I didn't mark lines to sew, and instead followed the lines on striped fabric.  Using striped fabric is certainly easier, as it eliminates the need to measure lines, but it does feel like a bit of a cheat.  This time I used non-striped Lotta Jansdotter fabric that I had left over from some other projects (skirt, binding a quilt), and used a chalk pen to mark the lines for sewing. I love chalk pens - if there were some sort of battle between chalk pens and disappearing ink pens, I would lead the chalk pen army.  But, in all seriousness, they just work so much better/more reliably.

Like my Wave Illusions pillow, I used mis-matched fabrics for the back of this pillow, just for fun.  The plaid is the same material that I used for Wave Illusions and the other fabric was used as the facing for that pillow.  So even though they won't live together, these pillows will (sort of) match.

Even though this wasn't my first go at this project, I had forgotten how much determination it takes to sew gathers well.  My advice for this project is to use pins, lots of pins.  Luckily, though, sewing gathers is also fairly forgiving, because the whole idea is for your fabric to look all bunched up.  So, just as long as you hold your facing and backing straight and flat, it will be beautiful.

I was thinking about giving this project away, but I think it looks really great on the sofa against the quilt that we keep there.  Or, I could put it on my bed where it would match my quilt binding.  So, that's it for March's One-Yard Wonders sew along projects - I'm excited to see what April will have in store!