Birthday Presents

My niece turned 11 yesterday.

I made her two pillows for her room using a pineapple quilt block as the front.

I used old shirts for the backs, therefore forgoing the time consuming step of button-hole making.
(Clever idea from teacher Johanna Masko)

Men's shirts used for the backs of pillows.

The pineapple block centre is perfect for fussy cutting a special design.

I made a pineapple block quilt about 20 years ago. I used the traditional foundation piecing method. But the method I learned at the Workroom was shorter and one could square-up the block after each addition. It was great! I had a fun time and did learn some things even though I have been quilting for about 25 years.

Fun centre cut.
If you don't have enough of the same fabric to make 4 strips
you can use two different fabrics and place them facing each other
in the round. Your eye tends not to notice the differences that way.

For the first pillow I made, I started with the shirt colour.

I picked up this shirt at Goodwill for cheap and
resewed the buttons using embroidery floss in a nice colour.

Then I chose the corner piece from my stash, which went well with the shirt.

From there, I went through my 1 1/2 inch strips and selected the blues and whites.

I'd like to make a full-size quilt using darks with brown and orange strips. The design that appears when each block is put together is very effective.

Photo from the book Quilts by Judy Wentworth,
published by Crescent Books
This quilt is from the 19th century, thought to be
made by a plantation slave in the southern United States.