Pillow Talk Swap

I've decided to catch up with everything I've been doing so I can get lazy with my posts again.  At the end of last year I took part in the Pillow Talk Swap on Flickr.  I knew this was a great way to start getting noticed.  Brioni got tons of attention when she swapped here and it in part led to her being a founder of Fat Quarterly.

I knew my partner liked bright rainbow colours and she was from Texas.  I decided on the Lone Starburst block by Six White Horses because I loved it and wanted to make one, and also because Texas in known as the "Lone Star State".

The block is 12" square and I wanted my pillow to be 16" square so I stupidly shrunk the pattern down to 75%.  I say stupidly because it was pretty tricky to make this small.  I think the end result was pretty spectacular though!

I really love how this turned out.  My points could have been a bit better but I learned a lot and they will be next time.  Quilting was a bit interesting.  I didn't know there was a guide for the sewing machine, so I made my own.

Quilting isn't what I like about sewing so I think I made a bit of a hash of it.  It was fairly wonky.  Everyone seems to think it's fine though.  The picture below has been making the rounds on Pinterest and it gets tons of hits daily.

Here are some pictures of the finished pillow!

Here is the lovely pillow I got from Liz!  I think it's perfect because while I love the minimal and simple design it is so not something I'd ever make.  Thanks tons Liz!