Snuggly Warm Ice Fishing!

I am surrounded by boys, well, men. My boys are all grown up and they love to fish. Especially my oldest son, John. He will fish no matter what the weather or how cold it is outside! He pretty much fishes year round... I was encouraged when he told me, that designs a winner mom! It's not often that my boys comment on my quilt designs. So it made me smile knowing he likes my 'Let's Go Ice Fishing' applique pattern. I am slowly getting better with my wool applique. My blanket stitches are getting better and aren't as wonky anymore. For this project, I gathered my Let's Go Ice Fishing pattern, some wool, pins, pearl cotton, freezer paper, pencil and my Primo Plaid flannel from Marcus Fabrics.  I traced all my pieces onto my freezer paper. Then I ironed on the freezer paper onto the different colors of wool and cut my shapes out for my snowman design.

I used cream thread from Valdini Threads to stitch around the snowman body and the 'snow'.

Here you can see my buttonhole stitches. 

I used a dark brown variegated pearl cotton to stitch around everything else. The snowman's arms are stitched using a backstitch. A backstitch is also used to make the 'flap' on his pockets. French knots are used to make the buttons.

Everything is stitched! I even added a carrot nose button to the snowman's face.

I decided that I would turn this sweet design into a pillow...

I cut an assortment of different Primo Plaid flannel into 1 1/2" strips to sew around my center Let's Go Fishing appliqued block.

As you can see, I sewed the strips around the block in a Log Cabin style. I also wanted it to look scrappy. You could easy just stop here and turn this into a mini quilt or table topper. But I decided to turn mine into a pillow...

Then I added a 2 1/2" strip all the way around to make a 'flanged' pillow....

Here I have my pillow front layered with the back, right sides together. I have sewn around the edge with a 1/4" seam. I then trim the corners and turn it right side out.

Then I stitch, in the ditch between the pillow top front and the flange. Leaving a 2-3" opening so that I can stuff the pillow. After the pillow is stuffed I complete sewing the seams on the inner flange and also close the opening on the edge.

I'm in love with how it turned out. It's going to be an adorable addition to my family room downstairs. It's all decorated with all things 'cabin' and a few snowmen here and there. This pillow will fit right in! This would be a cute project to decorate a cabin with. It's a cozy design. Working on this project made me pretty excited about more of the possibilities working with wool and using my designs. So next time you work with one of my applique designs, think outside the box and stitch it in wool. 

Happy quilting,

Cindy

My fishermen...