Birdies & Pleats

Hey y'all!  I wanted to share the finished pillow I was working on the other week.  This was a special project for a charity.  I sure hope someone will enjoy this pillow case.

As many of you know, my mom and I run our shop.  Its presently a home-based shop and all the fabrics are at my mom's home about 25 minutes from where I live.  There's this kind of country-ish 2-lane highway that runs between our towns and I usually take that back road to and from the shop. (Some residents along the road have recently put up barn quilts, which makes it that much nicer of a trip!)  Anyway, one day on the way over, I had this idea for a "pleat party pillow" cover.  I kind of laughed to myself about getting this idea on the road since I swear some of my best lesson plans used to come to me on long commutes.  (I now live 0.8 mile from my school so there's not much time for that on my 3-minute drive!  haha)

I picked out a fun stack of prints from Riley Blake for this one - Get Together by David Walker.  I ended up not using the Orange Essential Dot and sticking with the pinks.  And I was really pleased that the idea worked out just like I planned.  

Unfortunately, I didn't have my favorite camera when I finished, but you get the idea. :-)  I did 9 pleated blocks with sashing to make a 20" x 20" pillow.

The back is this cute tree print with squirrels.  A happy accident that this pattern meshed well with the two pieces of the envelope backing.

I alternated the directions of the pleats and really love how this turned out.  I'm working on the tutorial for this for y'all so stay tuned!  :-)

Happy Sewing!  :-)