Quilted Santa Pillows
Fall 2019. Christmas gift #2 for my aunt and uncle would be an adorable Santa pillow that I had seen on Instagram! I made four of these pillows: one for my aunt and uncle, one for my mom, one for my sister, and one for me! My mom and I went to a local quilt shop to gather some green fabrics for the trees, because I didn’t have any on hand.
I love the patterned fabrics we found and I used a green Kona solid that I had already and it mixed in perfectly! I bought Santa body kits from a quilt shop online because I knew I didn’t have everything I needed for the Santas. The kits were so cute and worked out great!
These trees were super easy to construct and the whole pillow came together remarkably quickly after all the piecing of the turkey pillows!
Making the trees was my first time working with templates. I cut out the pieces from the pattern paper and used my ruler along the edges of the template to cut the fabric out.
For the Santas, this was only my second attempt at appliqué (see the Elmo quilt) and definitely my first attempt at such an intricate appliqué. I worked slowly, tracing each image onto Heat n’ Bond and then fusing that to the correct color of fabric or batting (for the beard and fur details) and slowly cut out each piece. I then laid the rectangle that Santa would go on on top of the appliqué layout page that was provided in the pattern. My rectangle was white, so it was easy to see the layout page through the fabric. I fused each Santa piece onto the rectangle. Afterward, I used matching thread colors and stitched around each piece. I actually loved putting these Santas together! It was fun to see them take shape layer by layer.
This pillow is actually just three blocks and a Santa block from the Santa in the Trees quilt pattern! I had seen someone on Instagram post a pillow from this pattern and it was super adorable so I knew I had to make it myself! I did add some white borders to the outside of the pillow so that it would fit the pillow form.
I sent these off to be quilted with the same diamond pattern that I had seen on the inspiration pillows. They turned out so cute and so perfect!
Just like on the turkey pillows, I made zippered pillow backs made with some Merriment Pine Tree Red fabric from Gingiber.
Now that I’ve done these pillows, a whole quilt may be in order!
Finished November 24, 2019. Pattern: Blocks from the Santa in the Trees quilt by Cynthia Muir. Solids used were Kona Snow and Peapod. Patterned fabric and Santa kit fabrics unknown.