In early August, Mr. Pirate & I spent some time at Lake Tahoe (on the border between California & Nevada). One of the shops I poked my nose into had interesting bandana squares and I bought two: one of butterflies and one of a moose.
The butterflies were bought with my niece in mind, as she collects things with butterflies. The moose was bought with my middle daughter in mind, as she is (for whatever reason) enthralled with all things moose. :-)
The bandanas are about 18-20" and I thought they would make great throw pillows. BUT ... being me, I didn't want to "just" make a pillow out of a bandana; I wanted to put something personal into it.
I worked on the butterfly bandana first and thought quite a bit about what kind of border to put around it. The butterflies on the scarf are quite colorful, so I took the different colors of the butterflies and put them in a spikey, curving border, which came from the FABULOUS book, "Foundation Borders" by Jane Hall and Dixe Haywood. I outline-stitched all the butterflies and then stippled around each of them.
The resultant pillow was HUGE .. like, omg, HUGE! I bought a 26" pillow insert but probably should have gotten a 28" insert stead .. ah well.. I figure over time, the pillow insert will kinda "flatten" out. :-)
At a recent family function this weekend, I give it to my niece, who had NO idea it even existed. I love being sneaky. :-)
The moose bandana remains as a bandana at this point, as DD can't make up her mind what kind of quilting motif she prefers in the middle. I'm not pushing her to come to a conclusion, as I *do* have other UFOs to work on. :-)
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