Paper-Pieced Dragonfly Appliqué Pillow

I have finished my October paper-piecing adventures for Island Batik, played with my dragonfly appliqué design, and tested out some Y-seam sewing…..

This project sure covered a lot of bases, and my daughter has scored herself a new decorative pillow to match her newest quilt. Would you like to see how I put it together? 

And let me know what you think of the organza for the dragonfly appliqué wings! 

A Continuing Paper-Piecing Adventure

On Tuesday I showed you how I was attacking my Island Batik Ambassador project for October – at the pool 🙂 .

The main thrust of that post was how I prepared all my paper-piecing before the hand sewing stage. If you are curious about using foil for turning fabric edges for appliqué or hand stitching, you might like to read Tuesday’s mini-tutorial.

The featured fabrics i n this project are from the Island Batik Victoria and Albert collection and were given to me for use in my role as an Island Batik Ambassador.

Since Tuesday, this project has travelled with me to the dentist, to scouts and to drama group. Which gave me time to do the eight paper-pieced units I needed to start putting my design together. 

Designing a pillow cover

I chose this pillow form from my stash because, as it so happens, three paper-pieced blocks are an almost perfect fit for its height and width.

I had a bit of help with the layout stage…..

He was very thorough and helped me for quite a while. He’s so good to me, is our Mr Mew.

Once the pillow was approved and the patchwork rescued, I put it all together like this. 

There are eight paper-pieced blocks for the pillow front, around the empty octagon space pictured.. On either side of this, I have columns of three Y-seam constructed blocks that will end up on the back of the pillow. And on the far right, I have the three recycled appliqué constructed blocks that I mentioned on Tuesday. (Of all these methods, I actually prefer the Y-seam construction. but that is a topic for another day). This design used up all my cut hexie scraps except six. That’s pretty good, I think.

Are you Wondering about that Octagon-Shaped Hole?

Do you remember that one of my goals for this project was to revisit the dragonfly appliqués on the “Shimmer Light, Shimmer Flight” quilt? Specifically, to try making the wings from organza?

Well, I used the very last of my dark green fabric for one more dragonfly. Like the dragonflies on the Shimmer Light, Shimmer Flight quilt, I started with an appliqué body and some embroidered eyes and legs.

But this time I added organza wings. I fused these down just like the dragonfly body…. If you want to do this, just be aware that some of the glue can get a bit tacky through the loose weave. So use some parchment paper or an ironing sheet to protect your iron.

Then I chalked marked out the wings in the same way as I showed you for the original quilt, and stitched the details in with Madeira Astro-3 metallic thread.

And here’s the back.

After the dragonfly appliqué was done, I trimmed the batting.  I then folded the edges of the green fabric over the batting to encase all the raw edges. A little Elmer’s Washable School Glue held everything together – of course!

As you can see, I have used scrap batting as my stabiliser for the dragonfly appliqué embroidery. I also always deliberately stitch with the tension slightly unbalanced for embroidery so that there is no chance of the bobbin thread showing onto the top surface.

Back to the Pillow Construction….

I pinned the dragonfly appliqué panel over the hole in my patchwork like this.

Then I topstitched this panel into place and did a little meander quilting around the dragonfly. To fill in the smaller green squares, I quilted with vertical and horizontal sweeps the same as I did on the Shimmer Light, Shimmer Flight quilt.

Finally, I tidied up the ends of the patchwork piece and added about 20cm of a neutral fabric to the lefthand end to increase its size. This fabric won’t show in the finished envelope style cover.

Now it was just a simple case of wrapping this around the pillow form to get the right size and sewing the top and bottom seams to generate a pillowcase cover. 

Here’s the back… pretty attractive in its own right. 🙂

And the finished pillow from the front…..

It’s a lovely addition to my daughter’s bed.

I’m happy that I’ve finally given the organza wings a try. I quite like them, although I don’t  regret not doing them on the original quilt. I think the dragonflies are nice in either style. What do you think?

I think if I ever do these on a bigger project I will substitute the Madeira Astro-3 thread for a Louder thread. Something even more attention seeking,. The Astro-3 thread blends with the organza more than I’d like for full impact, although it’s super pretty up close.  There’s always another modification I could make!

Do you like adding textures and embellishments to your quilts? You know I do!

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The Chameleon turns rainbow with pleasure when he hears from you. I am more reserved, so I will respond in gratitude by email instead. Now that it’s your turn…. Scroll right to the end, leave me a comment and tell me, what do you think? Thanks for connecting!