A Slice Of Summer

I just finished making the sample for the Kimberbell "A Slice of Summer" pillow class that I am teaching on July 19th, and thought that I would share a few pictures with you.  There is a lot of work and steps involved, but the final product is very cute and completely worth the extra effort.

The first thing that you have to do is create the pillow front that you are going to 'decorate' with machine embroidery and the 3D extras.  I also choose to do my background quilting before I begin adding the machine embroidery.  It makes it much easier to quilt a blank slate than doing it later and trying to quilt in between all the watermelon pieces. I didn't take a picture of that step, but after I finish making the pillow front, I added batting to the back and went ahead and quilted it.

Base Pillow Front

The large watermelon slice consists of numerous applique pieces.  There are five different fabrics that needed to be placed and tacked down in their different locations.  Once all of the pieces are tacked down, then my trusty Babylock Destiny takes over and stitches the decorative cover stitches.

Decorative stitching in progress

Large slice done

These pillows are quite large, so you do have to 're-hoop' several times in order to complete the design. Here is the pillow with all of the machine embroidery completed.

 

Machine embroidery completed

Once you have the machine embroidery complete, you have to add all the extra 3D details. I temporarily glued the Rick Rack vine and watermelon rinds down and let it dry before I sewed it down with the sewing machine. That small step makes it a lot easier to get the Rick Rack where you want it.

For the rind of the large slice of watermelon, I hand stitched the green fabric using a ruched method and then hand sewed it down on the watermelon.  I also made the small yellow flowers using a similar method, added a button to the middle, and then stitched them down by hand to the pillow.

And here is the completed pillow!  Love it!