How To Make A Pillow Cushion From A Quilt Block

We're now at Day 6 the halfway point of the Benartex Burlap Brights Block Hop.

The Benartex Design Team have a new block design ready for you over on the Benartex Sew in Love {with Fabric} blog today and I'm joining in by sharing some ideas with on how you can use my On The Bright Side block design from Day 1 to make On The Bright Side quilts and also an On The Bright Side cushion.

Update at Thursday, 21 May 2015
NB: It has come to my attention that a quilting tutorial website has linked to this tutorial and are calling my cushion The Kaleidoscope Quilt Block Pillow.  This is incorrect; the block design is my own and the block, quilts and cushions made from my block design are all officially called On The Bright Side.

 I thought it would be fun to put together a few photo samples of how the On The Bright Side block can look made up into a quilt - I haven't calculated overall fabric requirements for the On The Bright Side quilts or anything so please don't expect to find a full-blown pattern, I've just set them out in a few variations.

9 block On The Bright Side quilt with wide sashing - each block facing the same direction.

updated at February 2016
I've now made the quilt up as a 9 block with sashing and you can read about it here.

16 block On The Bright Side quilt with narrow sashing - block rotation creates four red crosses and a centre blue cross.

And finally a 16 block On The Bright Side quilt with no sashing - again the blocks are rotated to create four red and one blue cross.

---

Could be you've made one block and don't really want to make any more, maybe you need a gift in a hurry?  

How about taking that one block and turning it into an On The Bright Side cushion?  

That's exactly what I've done with my sample block for the block hop.

Here's how you can do exactly the same - it's a technique you can use time and time again with any quilt block - just adapt your block and sashing sizes to match the size of your cushion form.

How To Sash A Quilt Block 

For this sample, I'm increasing my 12-1/2" unfinished On The Bright Side quilt block with sashing to create a 16-1/2"  unfinished quilt block which I'll then use to create the front of my finished cushion.  Full details of how to make my On The Bright Side quilt block are available here on the Benartex blog Sew in Love {with Fabric}

Materials:

(1) 12-1/2" quilt block

(2) 12-1/2" x 2-1/2" strips - solid white

(2) 16-1/2" x 2-1/2" strips - solid white

neutral thread

Using a scant 1/4" seam I attached the two shorter white strips to two opposite sides of the block.

After pressing the seams open I attached the two longer white strips to the final two opposite sides then pressed all seams open.

I now have a 16-1/2" unfinished (16" finished) block.

Oops, I forgot to take a pic of the block at this stage so I'll have to give you a glimpse of how it looks after quilting. I'm quite getting ahead of myself!!!

In true BBC Blue Peter 'Here's one I prepared earlier' fashion (showing that I really am an English child of the 60s!) I'm going to point you all over to my hugely popular tute Quilted Cushion With Hidden Zipper but before you rush over there let me tell you just a few bits I did differently on this particular cushion - and it's all down to having so much white solid on the block:

Things I Did Differently To Quilt A White Block:

1) I wanted the white solid to stay just that - white - so instead of using 'natural' batting, I needed to use white batting.  If you've never tried white batting it really makes a huge difference under white fabric - if you try the two side by side you'll see just how 'yellow' the natural batting makes white fabric look;

2)  I didn't have any white batting to hand and I wanted to crack on making the cushion so I improvised and used Pellon fusible fleece instead - it worked brilliantly;

3)  I took time snipping and removing all coloured threads from the back of the block before fusing it to the fleece - I didn't want a stray brightly coloured strand showing through later; and

4) I hand quilted the block rather than machine quilting.

I've done a simple hand quilted long running stitch around the white sections and then bordered the original block with a complete hand quilted square.  

It's a white embroidery cotton from my stash that has a single strand of silver running through it too.

I've also added a large white button from my stash to the centre of the block - the button's covered in solid white cotton fabric so it matches perfectly.

And having nipped over to my Quilted Cushion With Hidden Zipper Tute myself and followed my instructions there, this is how my finished On The Bright Side cushion looks.

And I'm loving those popping Burlap Brights on the back.

Check out the zipper hiding under that yellow section.

I'm loving my On The Bright Side cushion, I particularly like how the hand quilting recesses the white solid and the colours pop out even more and it looks so incredibly crisp and clean.  What do you think?

Clicking on an image will take you to a new page of crafty goodness :)

Disclaimer: Some fabrics used were supplied by Benartex at no charge to mbCD otherwise this post is for informational purposes only, no payment or commission is received on click-throughs and opinions are my own.


Featured on: