Daisy Do Pillow

This pillow cover was initially started as a throw quilt from a pattern in Jen Kingwell's book Quilt Lovely.  It is a sweet little quilt, and, if, like me, you enjoy hand piecing, really enjoyable to piece.  But by the time I had a few of the flowers together, I realized it was going to have to be a long term project because I have so much to do ahead of it.  So I decided to use it to cover a bare pillow form that needed a case.  I had to work out the layout a bit because I wanted a flower in the middle of the case, but it wasn't difficult and I was able to piece and quilt the project over a couple of weeks in spare minutes while waiting for kids in classes or at pick-ups and end of the day sewing.

I fussy cut a few of the flowers, but felt that some of the flowers didn't need that treatment.

I tried out a few different backgounds, but picked a light shade of blue in the end, feeling that it receded into the background and let the flowers speak for themselves.

Here is the finished front panel, ready to quilt.  I didn't pin it because it just fit in my 18 inch frame.   I began quilting traditional small stitches, but pulled them out in favor of bigger stitches and some embroidery floss.