Icy Improv Pillow

Made over my weekend of teaching a year ago in Inuvik, this pillow cover has been accompanying me to trunk shows and workshops as a sample of my Improv Under the Influence piecing technique. It was the launching off project for my Ice Road quilt.  I finally completed a simple envelope backing and bound the pillow cover last week on retreat.

It is quilted with unmarked, improv straight line quilting with a walking foot. Just following the X seams in the central portion of the pillow using the presser foot edge as a spacing guide. Unlike concentric circle quilting, I began the concentric triangle from the outside (I started sewing beside the X seam) and worked my way into the middle of each pieced quadrant.

It would have been too difficult to keep the triangle lines parallel to the piecing (without marking) if I'd started in the middle of each quadrant with a tiny stitched triangle; by the time I made it out to the long seams, the lines would've been skew to the white sashing and really noticeable.  The beauty of quilting a small item like a pillow top is Pellon fusible fleece (I don't bother wasting fabric and adding a backing, I just quilt through the pillow top and fleece).  The fusible batting stays put, so you can actually quilt from the outside in, without worrying about shifting.

The white border is stitched with white thread in improv zigzags that end up looking like wonky triangles.

...and of course I love a longer stitch length for straight line quilting. I set my Pfaff and Juki to 4.0. The binding is machine sewn to the back via a stitch in the ditch along the front seam.