new pillows and some homemade fabric

This pillow top has been hanging on my design wall for over a month, waiting to be finished. This finally happened over the weekend:

I like my quilted pillow with a border, but with this one, I felt it was too busy for a border. It is about 18″ square, envelope back in the same blue linen.

I like these little crosses, I might do a similar quilt soon.

I felt a bit nostalgic, so I made this pillow too:

This one is about 16″ square, also with envelope back in natural twill. This pillow was inspired by some newly acquired fabrics with writing on it, some dotty fabrics and finally some fabrics I printed myself. I have been thinking about doing that for a while, but just did not get to it. SInce my shoulder is still hurting, and I am not supposed to spend too much time sewing (when, oh when will this stop) I thought this would be a perfect time to try this. I had some fabrics sheets I bought a while ago, I got a few random pictures off the web, and printed on my inkjet printer. This is what it looked like:

This picture is actually after washing, drying and ironing it (to set the color – these are the washable sheets). This is what I think:

• the color was the same as printed on plain paper;
• the fabric sheet is supposed to be white, but it’s really off-white;
• the color did not run or fade during the setting process (washing, drying, ironing);
• the fabric is quite soft but has a little paper-y feel to it; especially when sewn – it makes that popping sound as if you were sewing through paper;
• it’s $9.99 for 3 sheets – a little pricey: next I want to try preparing my own fabric for printing – both for the price and to see if the fabric will feel better.
• it was fun – you could print anything to add to sewing projects.