Another quilt, and trying some new techniques

Lately I've got it in my head that I should learn more quilting techniques. Don't know why, I just felt like I should. So I learned English paper piecing, and cathedral quilting. I also discovered that pillows are ideal forms for quilting practice, because 1) they're small, 2) I love them, and 3) if you think about it and plan ahead only a tiny bit, they are easily changeable among your pillow forms.

Here's my English paper pieced pillow. I used PowerPoint to make a bunch of hexagons, then printed them and cut them out. I picked out some fabrics from my stash that would match my dining room decor, which is gray, white, and coral. I think that polka dot is Micheal Miller, and the other coral one is Salt Air by Cosmo Cricket (which incidentally, the pillow cover that used to live on this pillow form is made of). The other prints I've either forgotten or they came from Joann, and the solids are Kona.

The paper piecing took me an evening, and by the time I was done, I was really sick of it. I can't imagine doing a whole quilt. Then I hand-appliqued the hexagons to the gray fabric, made a little quilt sandwich, and did some echo quilting. The back (here's the interchangeable part) is an envelope closure so it's easily switched out. Good for short attention spans and spills. I really love the way this pillow turned out- it's very graphic and modern, which is a style I find myself drawn to more and more recently.

I also wanted to learn to do cathedral quilting. I kind of suck at it. It requires much more precision than I have. It will also end up as a pillow cover, but probably not soon, because I don't want to do it anymore. At least not right now. It's just SO MUCH hand sewing work, and if I'm going to beat up my hands, I'd rather it was from using double-pointed needles than from hand sewing. Also, I put the needle through both my thumb and index finger- not at the same time, but in the same hour. That just made me mad.

                                 

Aaaannd... I made another baby quilt and Etsy-ed it. When I started this quilt, the point was to use what I had already and see what happened. I like what happened. The piecing took a while, but it looks neat.

I quilted it with a random chevron pattern. And I made very, very sure to quilt it LIGHTLY, unlike the forest friends quilt. See, I can learn! It's much softer and more supple. I like it a lot.

Orange chevron flannel on the back, because it goes with the quilting, and well, it's trendy, and I'm a sucker for trends. Despite being "baby" sized, it's actually the perfect size for my lap whilst doing computery things. I may or may not have it on my lap now.

 I also knitted a scarf. The colors are eye-searing. It's my own pattern- the Yacht Club scarf. Just for fun.

I also started a, ahem, purple cheetah print sweater. Yup. Purple. Cheetah print. Sweater. I thought I was being super fashion forward and clever, but then  when I was at Forever 21 today, I saw a purple cheetah print sweater. I was moderately devastated, but what do you do. Keep on trucking.