Quilted Turkey Pillows
Fall 2019. In 2019, I decided to make a ton of pillows as Christmas gifts for friends and family. I prioritized them by which recipients I would see first. Since I had relatives coming from out-of-town for Thanksgiving, their pillows were priority #1. They would be getting two pillows, a turkey and a Santa!
I had seen a really cute turkey pillow on Instagram, and that was the inspiration for these pillows. Actually, all of the gifts were inspired by projects I’d seen on Instagram.
First up, was the turkey pillow. I had never seen a such an adorable turkey and I couldn’t wait to see it come together. What started out as me making one turkey pillow as a gift, ended up with me making 4 turkey pillows to give as gifts! One for my aunt and uncle, one for my mom, one for my sister, and one for me because if I’m making them for everyone else, I might as well have one too!
It was easy enough though because I made them all at the same time. I made each pillow the same way, with the same fabric placement for each. This way, I was able to do a lot of chain piecing which made the project faster! There were a bunch of tiny pieces to these pillows including these flying geese that finished at 1”x2”!
My mom and I went to a local quilt shop to gather some orange fabrics. I had some leftover orange fabrics from the fox quilt that I made, but I wanted to add some fun prints as well. Combining the two prints we found at the quilt shop with the leftover solids worked great!
The brown fabric is the same one that was used in the original pattern. It was so pretty and I knew I wanted to use it in my pillows too. It’s part of the Return to Winter’s Lane fabric line by Kate and Birdie. It is a super soft, drapey cotton and I love the texture printed onto the fabric!
I did send these pillowtops off to be longarm quilted. I knew I would appreciate the skill and extra hands that come with longarmming! I was running short on time for these pillows, so it was definitely the right choice and I love the quilting on them!
Oh! For the backs, I needed a method that was easy to achieve because I had never made a pillow before in my life and I had suddenly decided that I needed to make a bunch of pillows! I found a great tutorial on a zippered pillow back that I modified it slightly and it worked great! As a bonus, now these pillow covers are washable!
Finished November 23, 2019. Pattern is Gobble Gobble Pillow by Kristina of Center Street Quilts. Pattern was featured in the Fall 2019 issue of Quilts & More Magazine. Fabrics are a mix of Kona Solids and two orange patterned fabrics (unknown patterns). Top thread used is Aurifil 6730.