Out of the gate for a Winter of Care and Repair is this pillow that had literally busted at the seams. It’s been mended and in use again... in time for the holidays.
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| Mended tree pillow back in service. |
This pillow is a long-time, scrappy favorite of mine. It was a project I made as a beginner quilter. The original fabrics for the sashing, border, and the pillow back were solids—and likely from a source that was used before I knew about, and understood the value of, “quilt shop quality” cottons. As you can see, the fabrics didn’t hold up as long as the rest of the pillow.
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| Unstitching and removing the patchwork from the pillow top. |
Disassembly and the mending process
I decided to save just the center patchwork and put it into a new setting. It didn’t seem prudent to unpick the other seams and try to salvage the lesser-quality solid fabrics. (They will find their way into another scrappy project.)
For the new borders, a cotton blender—a “holiday red” (merlot is the color name) from the Canvas collection [Northcott Fabrics]— was my choice for the replacement fabric.
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| Unstitching the center patchwork from the old pillow. |
After unpicking the patchwork from the borders, doing a little “quilty math” to fit the size of the pillow form correctly, the new strips were cut and sewn to the patchwork.
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| New borders added. |
I sew rounded corners on pillows so they won’t be so pointy once the pillow form is inserted.
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| Sewing rounded corners. |
A new pillow backing (I use the overlap style) was added using the same Canvas blender fabric. The old pillow form was inserted, and the tree pillow is like-new again.
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| Mended pillow. |
The Winter of Care and Repair is off to a productive start. Happy patchwork for a happy Christmas!
