Scrappy USA Pillow

The modern flag quilt pattern I wrote about yesterday comes with a bonus — an additional pattern for a quilted USA pillow. The draft version of the pattern had some instructions that contradicted each other but after an email exchange with Rebel Craft Media, we got it all sorted out. (Again, a perfect example of why patterns need to be tested!)

I went with Cotton + Steel fabrics for this one to coordinate a bit with the flag quilt. The blacks and half of the whites are all from the new (and aptly named) Black & White collection. The rest of the whites are the same as some I used in the flag quilt top. The turquoise binding was a fat quarter from the bundle that I didn’t use for the flag quilt. I didn’t take any photos of the back, but I used the black fabric with white pluses for that.

I quilted the US with diagonal lines, and then quilted the black background with diagonal lines running in the opposite direction. I thought I was being kind of clever, but the black quilting really doesn’t show up very well at all so you don’t even notice it unless you look really closely. Oh well!

The rest of the pillow was really easy to put together — it just has overlapping flaps on the back to insert the pillow form. I had two large floor pillows that I bought from Ikea years and years ago, so I actually just used one of those pillow forms for this. I’m not a huge fan of the envelope closure, so I may end up adding a few snaps or buttons at some point just to secure it a bit better

I think it’d be fun to make another pillow either with the same US shape but reversed (black USA, white background) or with the shape of Texas. A semi-matching set! Maybe I’ll get around to that later this year?