Fish Pillow

Two of my really close friends from college had a baby girl last fall.  That baby has an older sister, Samantha, age 6.  I wanted to have a big sister gift for Samantha when I gifted the baby quilt.  I asked her parents what she was particularly into.  I got a few suggestions and the one that jumped out at me was "aquarium fish."  So I made this fish pillow!

The fish are Kona Lipstick, Valentine, Grellow, Cerise, and Carrot.  The background is Kona Candy Blue.  I used my wavy line stitch for the quilting so it would look like the fish were swimming in the ocean.

I love the envelope pillow method from Amanda Jean of Crazy Mom Quilts and that's how I make all my pillows.  She does not use a backing on the quilted part but I do.  I typically use muslin since it's inexpensive and won't show in the finished project.  I had *just* enough Candy Blue to make the back of the pillow.  It looks all nice and neat before I stuffed a 20" IKEA pillow form in there!

ready for a pillow form

For labeling, I used a trick I learned from Paige of Quilted Blooms.  She saw a pillow I made my son for his birthday and suggested that I write a birthday message on the inside of the pillow.  I do that with all my pillows now!  Here is my dedication, lousy handwriting and all.

This fish pillow joins Rainbow Elephant Parade on their way to baby and big sister.  I know, I finished Rainbow Elephant almost 6 months ago and hadn't sent it yet! 

I think these two compliment each other well. I even did wavy quilting for both, and that was not on purpose!  Happy accident, I guess.

This pillow is on my list of projects needed for my PhD (Projects Half Done) with Quilting Gail and was #2 on my list of Q1 finish along goals.