A Finish-Finish!

Try not to faint, but I have a finish-finish to show off. The recipients (my in-laws) don’t read this blog, so I decided that doing the reveal one day early wouldn’t hurt.

That said, I present to you Maine from the Hearts of America series by The Victoria Sampler.

First, in its raw form:

Second, in its pillow-top form:

And finally, in its finished pillow form:

I had fits with the finish. That photo of it as a pillow-top was actually its first incarnation. I had very little of the red fabric leftover after cutting the piece for the back (the whole pillow ended up much larger than I had anticipated) to actually piece onto the front. So I used a very, very narrow seam allowance when piecing it. As a result, when I started stuffing the pillow, the seams started to pull apart. After frantically trying to reinforce the seams (and failing), I decided to give up for the night and go to bed, seeing as it was 2 AM. When I awoke 7 hours later, it was with the realization that the answer was to remove the stuffing, rip off the back, rip out half of the piecing of the red fabric and redo it all with a larger seam allowance. While it was a lot of extra work, it was worth the effort as I will not have to worry about it falling apart in the hands of my in-laws.

Sorry, Barbara, this one’s not coming your way (in fact, I’ve managed to stitch nothing for you this year, sorry), but I’ll let you touch it, if you ask nicely. 😉