Appliqued Animal Pillows–Two Different Techniques

 

Wool just seems to go with llamas, so on the left, a llama pillow made from vintage felted wool.

First, I traced the llama image, re-sized it on the scanner, and cut the shape out of an old cashmere sweater which had been machine washed and dried.

I love the channel quilting, (another name for parallel rows of stitching).   I gives my llamas a very touchable texture (like the real things which are lots of fun to pet).

The letters were done free hand.  Start with a basic shape (rectangle, circle or triangle)  and then snip and trim.    And even though felted wool won’t ravel, I used a machine satin stitch on all the raw edges.    Just make sure to do your channel quilting first.

 

The elephant pillow is also an applique project, but instead of cutting out an image, I borrowed a wonderful embroidery fragment from a discontinued drapery sample.  (Lucky me, I snagged a pile of these jungle crewel pieces from India  at a Scrap Exchange sale.)

I cut a rectangle around the elephant and free stitched it to my base fabric.  Torn strips of a coordinating cotton cover the raw edges.  Zig-zag them down so they don’t ravel any further.   Wooden buttons accent  the corners and add to  the exotic feel.

Both pillows were made as presents and were big hits.  Not sure which turned out to be my favorite.  Which do you like best?

 

 

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