Black Squirrel Threads: It's Fun to be an Elf

In the fall I received a call from my best friend's mom; she asked if I'd come over because she had something to ask me. Well, of course I went. Not only because I've known her since I was 18, but I was curious to know what the big secret was.

Mrs. M said she'd seen a pillow made from neckties once and had thought it was really beautiful. She asked if I'd make two pillows for her to give her daughters for Christmas. She leaves the room and returns with two hangers filled with the late Mr. M's ties. My eyes filled with tears to think that she would ask me to use something that was evidently so dear to her. "Absolutely" I said, I'd be happy to make the pillows. She had one overriding rule "Don't tell Sally Ann. I want her to be surprised." Gulp.

I had done necktie pillows before and knew what not to do; don't attach them to a stabilizer and then cut strips because they will fray something fierce. You can see in this photo that I tried to use some fancy stitches from my machine to hide the fact that the edges weren't finished.

I decided to do a paper pieced design. I wrote a post about this in October as you can see It Pays to Plan Ahead . Basically, here's the Cliff's Notes version of what I did:

1. Deconstructed the neckties. Then I just had the silk etc. and not the double thickness and lining that is sewn into a tie. In this case, the bow tie was Mr. M's signature look, so there were a lot of little pieces.

2. Because I did have so many little pieces, I knew that I needed a small repeatable pattern. I came up with a repeatable block that could accommodate small pieces of fabric. Everything fell into two primary colorways: brown and navy.

After I had a couple sample blocks done I emailed Mrs. M to keep her in the loop and ask for her opinion. She liked my samples so I marched forward with the rest of the blocks.

At this point I knew I needed sashing, so I took the blocks to show my Magpie Quilter friends. The gave me some great suggestions which included a little block at the intersection of each row/column.

I bought tweed-looking flannel for the back. But much to my horror, the print on the one flannel was crooked! What should I do; cut it crooked so the print appears straight or cut in on the grain of the fabric? I did what any other person with a support group would do; I asked my Magpie friends. The feedback I received was valuable; cut it on the straight of the grain because flannel can stretch and then I'd have a real mess on my hands. So that's what I did; I cut the flannel, used it for the cornerstones because that really tied the front to the color scheme on the back.

Since the pillows are a non-standard size, I made my own pillow forms with muslin and some polyfill. I stuffed the corners with some loose polyfill to fill them out a bit more.

Then the day came to deliver them to Mrs. M. And I'm happy to say that she was as happy with them as I was. It was fun being her elf this Christmas and designing something I know her daughters will treasure.