Welcome to TGIFF – Thank Goodness Its Finished Friday – on my blog. We open Thursday evening and close Saturday at midnight to give bloggers from all over the world to post their finished quilt projects. For those of us who host, it is so much fun seeing your FINISHES on this linky party and I can’t wait to see what you share.
I am so pleased to tell you a little bit about the barge and the pillows that I created. We have a fantastic group of people who do all the hard work on many of the Casco Bay Islands. I live across the street from Julie and she requested I make pillows of this barge, the Lionel Plante. You can find out a little more about the company on facebook or their web page (unfortunately under construction but the gallery is working). In fact, a few years ago they won a truck and this talks a little of their work. I hope I have done justice to the boat and that Julie’s son enjoys the pillows for a long time.
Designing the Pillows
I used one of their photos to make my design in Electric Quilt 8. It was a lot of fun to do but in the end, I had to take out some of the details. When you see the construction pictures, the pieces were small!
This gives you and idea of what I work with. The picture is “behind” the block I am drawing, which I use to trace and make lines for the quilt block.
There are some missing lines in this, but it was really small. After speaking with Julie, I made the boat a bit narrower and took out some of the details.
This would allow me to make a 14″ block for an 18″ pillow.
The two bottom pillows were ones I had done for Julie of the Machigonne, our car ferry that gets islanders and visitors back and forth to Portland (a 12 minutes ferrry ride). You can read about those pillows here and the pattern is on my site here.
Constructing the Pillows
Here is one of the pieces of the boat in process. they were teeny tiny pieces – the squares on the Daylight Wafer Lightbox are 1/2″ so that entire piece is about a 2″ square when done!
The very same piece is now turned over so you can see the piecing. Yup, those are all about 1/4″ wide strips on the boat pieces.
The only way for me to piece this block was to use paper piecing. Above, one of the sections is on the light table. I found this invaluable for making the blocks.
I use an Add-A-Quarter* ruler and my Famore rotary cutter to trim. The light table is a flat one, made by Daylight, Wafer 1*. There are also models called CutterPillar* which are very similar and maybe a little less expensive. I only recently started using this for paper piecing, as the light can help you see whether the pieces are covered in paper piecing. The cutting pad is getting a bit worn after the last few work outs, so I may be looking for a replacement mat. I will let you know if I find one.
And here are few shots of the work in progress. Since the work was tedious I did not take a lot of photos of the entire process, but here are a few for you to get the drift! For me, I find that making 2 is pretty efficient…and was able to catch a mistake on one and correct it before I repeated it on the second one.
Quilting the Pillow
I loaded up both pillows onto the frame and used my favorite quilting design Catching Bubbles by Christy Dillon of My Creative Stiches for these pillows. I used the light blue So Fine #494 Pastel Blue and a Magna Glide light grey bobbin. The So Fine thread really is a terrific blender for the quilted pillows.
I love the way the backing of the pillow looks. This batt is a thick poly I bought and would only use for the pillows, but I do love the definition that you get on the quilting.
The Finished Pillows
I really love the way they turned out. I am afraid a few others in the clan may ask for some, so there may be some more in my future. Right now, I am just thinking that the next set needs to include one or two for me. However, my quilting card is busy until mid-March, but by then I may be ready to face the challenge and make a few for me and the summer sales on the island. (I have no idea why the afghan is looking pinkish in areas…weird lighting effect as it is totally not stained).
Join in the Linky Party!
Now it’s your turn to post, and the rules are simple – share your quilting finish for this week. The linky party is open from 6 pm on Thursday, December 18th through midnight on Saturday, December 20th.
Coming Up on My Blog
Plaidish
Starry Seas Blog Hop (1/13)
SAHRR 2026
Linking Up
Fabric Stash
And, I am still down! Net Fabric = -13.25
Prior YTD Fabric Used = 61.75 yards
Prior YTD Fabric Bought = 51 yards
Current Month Fabric Used = 2.5 yards
Current Month Fabric Bought = 0 yards
