Arbor Blossom Hourglass Pillow

There are a few designers who just have a knack for creating sweet floral prints, and Nadra Ridgeway of Ellis & Higgs is one of them. I want a whole bouquet of her flowers on fabric! Her new collection Arbor Blossom is just as lovely as her previous two lines, and I really enjoyed turning these prints into a simple patchwork pillow using a traditional hourglass block.

The pillow feels so vintage to me. I tried to pair similar colors in each block within both the feature and background prints. The white borders and colorful cornerstones let the blocks stand out a bit within the pillow top.

My favorite print in the whole collection is this blue floral -- so lovely! I tried making my first button closure for the envelope backing, and I love the way it turned out.

The faux weave on the button surface makes me think of lattices and wicker furniture, playing nicely with the Arbor Blossom theme.

Keep your eyes out for other projects on the Arbor Blossom blog tour this week. Here's the schedule:

6-12-2017   Heidi Staples at fabricmutt.blogspot.com
6-13-2017   Kim Kruzich at retro-mama.blogspot.com
6-14-2017   LeAnne Ballard at everydaycelebrate.blogspot.com
6-15-2017   Allison Jensen at woodberryway.com
6-16-2017   Veronica Am at vividfelicity.wordpress.com
6-17-2017   Nadra Ridgeway at ellisandhiggs.com

Happy sewing, friends!

My Favorite Spot

My girls and I were wandering around World Market yesterday when suddenly I saw it...the cutest little loveseat ever made. We've pretty much come to the end of furniture purchases for our new home, but I couldn't get this piece off my mind. Thankfully my husband was kind enough to not only send me off to the store this morning to buy the loveseat, but he even got it upstairs to our room and assembled it for me. What a guy...

This beautiful piece is covered in natural colored linen and dotted with little buttons, each one covered in a different fabric print. They reminded me so much of Liberty prints that I decided it was time to finally break out my small stash and make a matching pillow. This was my first time working with Liberty, so I pulled out Alexia Abegg's beautiful book Liberty Love (now out of print and only available electronically unless you're lucky enough to find a hard copy) to read up on her tips for sewing with lawn. I found it very helpful, and the fabric was easier to work with than I had expected.

The pillow is made up of six blocks, each containing one 4 1/2" square and five 2 1/2" squares. Each block contains prints that feature a dominant color: red, yellow, green, blue, pink, and purple. It was such a treat to play with all those little squares until I got the layout I wanted.

I backed the pillow in leather yarn dyed Essex linen, binding the edge of the backing in a favorite Liberty print.

And look at the beautiful bowl of scraps I had left over! I'm leaving these out on my cutting table to look at while I work. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed making this little pillow. There will definitely be more Liberty sewing in my future.

But for now, I can't wait to get upstairs and curl up with a good book on that loveseat, my new favorite spot in the house.