A while ago I was one of the lucky winners to win a kit to make a pillow from Seamstar. It took me another while to put my hands on it but I finally managed to make a lovely patchwork pillow with piping (wow!) and even a side concealed zipper (wow wow!!!).. The kit contained 6 charm squares in mostly green prints, matching binding and piping cord, a zipper, linen, batting… and instructions. After that, I made another one, using 6 red charm squares (see the poor beheaded birds…?).
I followed the instructions step by step, quilting it by hand stitching inside the seams of every linen square. The piping was not difficult to make, but I’m not sure about having to stitch so many times… First you need to stitch along when you are making it by placing the cord inside it. Then, as the instructions said, you stitch it all around the front panel (with raw seams together), and then you stitch the front and back panel to finish the pillow. It is hard to hide one of the 2 first lines of stitching and that means they show a bit in some sections. But hey, it is my first time trying with piping…
For the red pillow, I used red DMC no.8 perle cotton thread and decided to cross each linen square. I was going to put the side concealed zipper too, but I changed my mind and decided to go for buttons. I had these big nice red buttons that seemed just perfect for it.
And because I ran out of linen and couldn’t bother waiting to get more, I went to the local fabric shop and found this nice rustic cotton with subtle Christmas print.
I quite like hand quilting with perle cotton and the only stash I had were 5 colours from DMC. The thing is that I know I will be hand quilting more often in the future and I wanted to have a nice stash of threads. I remembered reading in a quilter’s blog, sorry I can’t remember which one!, that she had found a great supplier of perle cotton thread in South America that would ship free internationally. I happened to find it, or at least I think it is the one she was probably talking about, since it offered quite a good deal on threads and at a very reasonable price.
While it might be difficult to find a specific colour that you may need, it is a great way to build up a good stash of it. It is not DMC but now that I’ve tried it I can say it is as good. It is made in Brazil and the brand is Rubi. You can buy a mix of colours and it includes lovely variegated ones.
These balls contain 40 metros, whereas the one on the right, DMC, contains 80metres. Yet, I bought 30 Rubi balls for €28.74, with free shipping, so that makes each ball at about €0.96. The average DMC 80m ball is about €2.50 (excluding shipping), so… I think you get a nice deal for a stash builder with Rubi! I will still buy DMC for specific colours if needed, but for now, I have a pretty good selection.
El Petit Taller 