Cushion for Christmas Tutorial – Martini and Weave Wednesday

So when Midge rang me up and said, “Molli. Seriously, what are you doing right now? I need your help.”  

“Well Midge, it’s Wednesday, so I’m having my afternoon martini–dirty, of course–and I’m about to blow out weaves number three and four. But what sweetie, may I help you with?” I knew that if Midge felt compelled to interrupt Martini and Weave Wednesdays, it must be important.

“I’ve got an open spot on my Cushions for Christmas Blog Hop, and I’ve signed you up for today. Okay, thanks, bye!”  

“What? Whadya … Wait, wait, wait, WAIT, but, but, I’ve never made a cushioooonnnn!!!! …. ” Radio silence even after I left her 17 voice messages. Can you believe the nerve.*  

And like that, I was roped into her little cushion party, and set about finding some inspiration. I was hanging my head in desperation when it hit me. My shoes were pretty fab (albeit a bit dirty) that day, and I decided to see if I could make a cushion inspired by them. 

I knew I didn’t have much time, so I thought scraps were the way to go. Plus, I knew I had a lot of them left over from the #MSBHQAL and No Value Does Not Equal Free quilts, specifically 2.5″ x 16″ strings. I dove into the scrap box and pulled every pink, white and purple 2.5″ string I could find, and then proceeded to cut them in half into 1.25″ x 16″ strings (but really just about any length of string would be fine as long as they are consistent).

I may or may not have pretended to have had a pink, white and purple side pony tail after I had cut them into 1.25″ x 16″ strings.

So after I had these fantastic pile of strings, I grabbed my String Piecing Without a Foundation tutorial and went to work. It basically just tells you to sew all your strips together in a row, and then in one big swoop iron those seems down. (I know, it’s a complicated tutorial!)  

String Piecing Without a Foundation

The kicker is some handy-dandy cutting charts at the end of the tutorial that I encourage you to use however you like. They show you how to make 3.5″ squares with some available string options you already have. Because I like to complicate things for myself (and I had forgotten I had made those, Captain Obvious right here), I decided I wanted 5″ blocks using my sheet of 1.25″ x 16″ strings sewn together. If you want to make an 18″ pillow like mine, you’ll need 16 blocks measuring 5″ square each. Can you tell I like flying by the seat of my hot pants?! 

The chart I made above gives you the measurements needed to achieve this, and you’ll have one block left over (pin cushion?!) Keep in mind now that you don’t have to use 1.25″ strings, or the same width of string throughout. So following the methods of madness in the tutorial I linked above, cut out your squares from your sheet of strings and you’re ready to sew them together!

After that was all up and ready to go, I made myself a quilt sandwich and ran lines down either side of each seam. You could FMQ here, or do some more creative quilting, but my martini was calling, and it was time to just K.I.S.S.!

I’ll remind you here that Ms. Molli ain’t made no pillow before, so when it came time to actually make it functional, I was a bit stumped. So if you are like me, let me just show you this:  

How To Make a Basic Pillow  

Kind of speaks for itself, doesn’t it? It’s the quickest, easiest way to throw an envelope closure on that sucker and call ‘er a day. I could have made you a tutorial for that, but why reinvent the wheel when the one you’ve got is already round?! Sew Mama Sew, and Julie Herman from JayBird Quilts know what they’re doing!

I knew that purple Collage fabric would come in handy!

And there you have it. If I can make my first pillow in a day, with a martini in one hand and a weave in another, so can you! (Maybe try it without the weave in hand though, because you definitely don’t want that winding up in your drink). If you do decide to go all stripper crazy, I’d love to see what you make, so send me a photo and don’t forget to link up at MsMidge on December 14!