A Scrappy Project

I (Jessie) have been sewing for a while, about as long as I've been married (which is much longer then I care to admit) and I know that some of you have been sewing longer then that. In that amount of time I have accumulated the largest bunch of scraps! I'm guessing some of your scrap piles have mine beat. Which raises the question what to do with these scraps. I hate to throw them away, which, I suppose, is why the pile is so large. Just my scrap christmas pile is starting to deserve a plastic bin all it's own. What's a crafty woman to do?!

Enter the patchwork Christmas pillow. The idea isn't completely mine I saw it awhile back out in the interwebs but I can't seem to locate the original now. Anyway I used 4X4 squares out of my assorted Christmas scraps and then used my secret patchwork trick, that I will now pass on  to you.

Lay out your squares on top of a piece of fusible interfacing. Iron in place.

This works for anything patchwork that could stand a bit of oomph, like pillows, purses, seat cushions etc. and makes it so much faster. I cut out a piece of fusible interfacing big enough for all the squares. Line the squares up right sides up wrong sides against the fusible side of the interfacing, with the squares touching. Iron. Now fold the interfacing and squares, right sides together, along each row and sew the entire row at once. Do this for every row and then every column. This is so much easier and faster then sewing each little square one at a time.

The fabrics are from my stash (meaning I'm not sure where they originated) but the backs of the pillows is fabric from the shop. I love the ric rac trim and kind of wish I had used it on both. I also think a trim with little poms would be adorable.  I made the back envelope style to slip the pillow in and out for easy washing. All in all this was a very satisfying and quick project.

So that was our first Sew Unique tip, do you have any tips you'd like to pass along?
Happy Sewing,
Love, Jessie and Sue.