In Stitches with Fat Quarter Shop: First Love Pillow

Welcome back to our next pillow in the In Stitches series!  This one is First Love pillow, and you bet you will fall head over heels for the simple piecing technique we’ve come up with to easily create this beautiful diamond pattern.

Fabric Requirements & Tools

For the pillow, you will need these fabric requirements.

• Two 1/8 yards of light print fabric for pillow front
• Two 1/4 yards of dark print fabric for pillow front
• 1/4 yard fabric for binding
• 3/4 yard fabric for backing
• 20” square of batting
• 20” square of muslin
• Coordinating thread of your choice to piece and quilt (we used Aurifil Blush 50wt)
• One pillow form (we prefer the 18″ square for extra fullness)

We selected our four prints from the Yes, Please collection from Riley Blake Fabrics for the striking combo of black, white and rose gold metallic!  It’s our favorite color lately.

Cutting Instructions:

For cutting, we subcut our strips into lots of triangles, and the Creative Grids Half-Square 4-in-1 Triangle Ruler ruler came in very handy, though you can certainly use a small square ruler as well.

From each light print fabric cut:
1 – 3 1/2” x WOF strip, subcut into 9 triangles (18 total)

From each dark print fabric cut:
2 – 3 1/2” x WOF strips, subcut into 12 triangles (24 total)

From the binding fabric cut:
2 – 2 1/2” x WOF strips

From the backing fabric cut:
2 – 20” x 24” rectangles

 

Assembly Instructions:

With right sides facing, place a light print triangle on a coordinating dark print triangle. Offset a 1/4” on the two joining corners, as shown, and press open.

Repeat with the same fabrics, continuing to offset a 1/4″ on the two joining corners and pressing open.

Assemble four matching dark print triangles and three matching light print triangles. Make three Row One Units.

Repeat the steps above with four matching dark print triangles and three matching light print triangles. Make three Row Two Units.

Assemble one Row One Unit and one Row Two Unit as shown, paying close attention to the row placement.  Press open and make three Complete Row Units.

Assemble the Complete Row Units paying close attention to row placement. Press open.  It should look like this!

Square up the Pillow Top to 17 1/2″ square, trimming the excess fabric.

Quilt, Trim, Bind and Dazzle!

Layer the pillow top, batting and muslin, and quilt as desired. To let the rose gold shine, we quilted it minimally with straight lines. We selected a matching thread color and used our #37 patchwork foot as a guide along our seams.  Simple as that!  Trim the excess batting and muslin.

Fold the Fabric F rectangles in half along the 24″ side with wrong sides together for the Pillow Backing. Folded in half, they should measure 12″ x 20″.  Layer the two folded Fabric F rectangles with a 4” overlap with folds in the center and raw edges on the outside.

Place the Pillow Top right side up on the Pillow Backing, matching centers. Pin and baste 1/8” away from the edge. Trim excess Pillow Backing.

Piece the Fabric E strips end to end for binding. Bind as desired.

Et voila!  Your First Love pillow is done and ready to dazzle!

We hope you LOVE this pillow as much as we loved making it, and please comment with more ideas on what other tutorials you’d like to see us do!  If you make the First Love pillow, please share it with us, we are looking forward to seeing your unique versions.  Thanks for stopping by!