Handmade pillows for Christmas gifts

I decided to make my Mom two pillows for Christmas, back in June, when I found this dogwood (or is it magnolia?) fabric at a sewing expo.  I knew she would love this fabric.

I looked in my stash for fabrics that would go well with this. I had a bunch of "linen-look" fabric in a yellow-beige that I had inherited from a friend.  I also pulled out some fat quarters for accent fabrics and bought some dark brown as well.

Here I am auditioning the arrangement of the fabrics for the mitered corner pillow. I went with the second one as I liked the contrast of the brown with the floral.

Here are my finished pillows.

 For the mitered corner pillow, I sewed the yellow-beige, polka dot, and brown fabrics into four matching strips. Then used I used this website to figure out how to miter these to the floral fabric. The fabrics aligned pretty well with this technique.

For the other pillow, I sewed strips of my accent fabrics to together. I used the bird template from a book I got at the library. I will amend this post when I am home and will add the book name. The book is Mixed and Stitched by Jen Osborn.

I ironed fusible web on the fabrics for the bird, traced the template on each fabric (traced on the paper protection on the backside fusible web, remember this will be reverse of the finished piece) and cut them out (cutting the brown one bigger than the polka dot one). I ironed the polka dot bird to the brown one, then ironed them both to the floral fabric. I free motion stitched around both bird shapes twice (with matching thread). I then sewed this piece to the accent strip.

I backed both of the pillow fronts with Warm and White cotton batting to make them a bit more durable and stitched in the ditch at all the seams.  I then added a zipper and the the pillow backs and was done. The birdie is super cute! We are having our family Christmas this week and I am sure my Mom will love these!