Christmas in January

So it turns out that I forgot to share these pillow covers I made for Christmas.  

The first pillow is an orphan block (made from this tutorial) turned beautiful pillow.  I think this was the second block I had ever paper pieced.  It is a great block for those new to paper piecing.

I love, love, love this one.  To make it I simply drew a triangle on the fabric and sewed on a bunch of buttons.  I was able to sew on the buttons with my sewing machine by turning the stitch length to 0 and adjusting the width until it was the width between the holes in the button.  Then I just put the pedal to the medal and stitched back and forth about 20 times.

 It's hard to see, but I tried out quilting swirls for the first time.  I spiraled in and then paused and spiraled back out again.  I have wanted to try this design for awhile, but was scared it wouldn't turn out.  Yet again, my fears were unfounded.  Isn't that usually the case.  It seems the more I worry about something the less of an issue it turns out to be.  Some of the spirals weren't total perfect but overall it was a success.

 Leah Day has a great tutorial on quilting swirls here on YouTube.  In fact, she has a ton of quilting tutorials there.  I think I am going to have to work my way through them.  Do you think my husband would watch them with me instead of Almost Human in the evenings?  ;)