Blue Heart Birthday Pillow

On Saturday when I posted about this pillow for my granddaughter's birthday gift, I was a little doubtful I would finish in time for her birthday on Sunday. However, quilting it was easy, and the envelope back went very smoothly, thanks to this excellent tutorial by Christine(who has a wonderful blog at Patchwork Allsorts).

We met our son and family at a local Mexican restaurant to celebrate; beautiful granddaughter was very happy with her pillow (and her cash )

Our goofy grandson trying to take her pillow away (top photo) and photo-bombing (bottom photo)

This was my first attempt at an envelope style pillow. In 2013 I made a giant Texas A&M pillow for my grandson (blogged about here) and finished it with a zipper. Zippers look neat but take time, and since time was key for me I looked up Christine's tutorial. An hour later I was stuffing the pillow! Christine's instructions are perfect and easy to follow, and I was so pleased with the final result.

I did simple outline quilting around the heart and straight line quilting for the remainder.

The pattern is called floating heart, and I used fabrics from Kate Spain's Honey Honey line, Moda Marbles, and some low volume white and gray scraps. My granddaughter said the pillow matched her room perfectly, and that she would be very happy with a quilt of the same colors, so that goes on my to-do list!