Another couple of pillow finishes

I've really enjoyed making pillows lately. It's great seeing the results of my creative efforts so quickly!  We've made a couple of recent trips to visit friends and it's so fun giving secially crafted pillows to them. I based my patterns on Jere Brandvig's QAYG Berries and Cream pillow in McCall's Quick Quilts Feb/March 2015 edition. (I also have Jere's Quilt-As-You-Go Made Modern book, which is beautifully done.) I like to make pillows based on something unique to the recipient, so I begin with choosing the fabric for the center of the pillow and build from there.  I made this pillow for my friend Kim, who has several birds in her home.  I joked that if Kim were a bird, she'd look like the one I used for her pillow.

I didn't quilt the one for Kim; it was pretty decorative and I didn't feel it needed the extra quilting.

I made this one for my son's girlfriend who loves cats.  It's quilted using parallel lines.

I previously shared this pillow, made for newlywed friends.

The Three Year, Three Machine Quilt

Seriously, three years, three machines, and two states later it's done!  When I began to consider taking on quilting as a hobby, I took a few classes at my local quilt shop in VA.  But, battling chronic illnesses while trying to take on something new is difficult and my health didn't always cooperate with going out to classes. Then we moved to Hawaii, where there was a community center in our neighborhood and a quilting group that met once a week.  So, I tried again.  I became friends with one of the quilters who opened her own quilt shop and I bought some beautiful oceanic fabric to make our twin grandchildren (a boy and a girl) quilts.  If I was going to quilt, I wanted to make beautiful things for our families and friends.  My health continually interfered with my quilting efforts.  My beginner Brother sewing machine ended up breaking, further hindering my efforts.
I began the first quilt for the grandkids at Kilauea Military Camp in October 2011 during the annual community quilter retreat. My friend Donna thought a QAYG project would be easiest and we started by cutting three strips from the marine fabric and three strips from the blue blender fabric to start making sections for what was then a twin size bed quilt.  I didn't make a lot of progress during the retreat with health issues, distractions, etc., but I kept trying to work on the quilt as I felt up to it at home.
We moved back to VA toward the end of 2013 and I began to pick up quilting again with another begginer quilting/sewing Singer machine in the summer of 2014.  Finally, I decided to finish the quilt I had begun in Hawaii; but, by that time, the kids were in full size beds!  I had to get more fabric, which was no longer easy to even find, and had to get totally different fabric for the second quilt.  I originally thought the first quilt would be for our grandson; but it really looked more colorful for a girl, so it became our granddaughter's. By the time I finished her quilt, I had decided I needed a serious machine to do bed-size quilts.  So both the quilts were finished on my brand new Brother VQ2400 that I 'sew' love!  Luckily, my grandson's quilt only took six weeks or so to complete. I like that their quilts are similar and not exactly alike. I did use the same fabric pattern for the binding, but in different colors.

Here's my granddaughter's finished (3yr/3machine)quilt:

and here's my grandson's

in process...

Love Pillow in New Home

Here's the completed Love Pillow in Lynessa and Steve's home.  They seemed to really like it :D