Sidetracked: Hope's Pillow

So, three years ago I made a quilt for my friend Charlotte (who also goes by Hope).  It was only the second quilt I'd ever made and I was really proud of it.  (Here it is, Hope's Haven, in my Quiltfolio)  Sometime after giving it to her, we visited a quilt shop in Monterey (love it there....the ocean....and a fabric store....need I say more?)  Anyway, being the good sport she is, she let me drag her to a class on String Quilts...and I immediately went home and practiced the block with scraps from her quilt. (Btw, I'm sharing this post over on Fabric Tuesdays - scroll up and click the button to view.)

Of course, when I told her what I'd done, she started hinting about the possibility of getting a pillow to go along wither her quilt.  Thus, the idea was born.  And, although it's been almost 3 years, I am quite proud I followed through and finally made her Hope's Haven Pillow. 

It was fun arranging the 4 blocks but a little stressful as well.  See, I have a hard time with "random" patterns...they always look off balance...but I finally got something I could live with.  Since this was my first pillow, I read a lot of blogs looking for tips, tricks and different styles of pillows.  Borrowing from many of them,  this is how it turned out.  

Chose the border, backing and binding fabrics....oh and some cute buttons...

Decided to go with overlapped backing so the pillow form could be removed

 and (my own idea here) fasten the opening with those cute buttons.

Got to experiment with the automatic buttonholer feature on my machine....wow, so easy!



And.....here's the finished product....front...

 Using the third button on the front center was an afterthought really

But I love buttons....and liked how that turned out.  Here's the back.

And there you have it, Hope's Haven coordinating pillow.  Happy Birthday, Char!