Birds of Paradise pillow tutorial (ft. Chenille-it blooming Bias & AGF Boscage collection)

Hi everyone,

I hope you are having a great summer so far – here in Buffalo, NY it is simply gorgeous!!

And what says summer more for us quilters than beautiful, luscious fabrics, like Boscage collection by Katarina Roccella with some added, gorgeous texture curtesy of Chenille-It Blooming Bias tape!! In my previous post I shared my quilt made from these fabrics, Borneo Nights and once I finished that, I could not stop playing – hence a few pillows to match! Well, first I made this pillow above, using actually few leftover strip-set pieces from the quilt and then of course I realized that I NEED to share it and make a quick tutorial!! DUH…. So of course we then need detailed process photos, which I failed to take in the first go, so second pillow was in order!!

Both of these pillows are SUPER-EASY to make, feature my favorite/did-you-try-this? method of making Flying Geese – 3D, one-seam Flying Geese method, and have some fun texture to boot, curtesy of Chenille-It Blooming Bias tape!! You know how much I like 3D Flying Geese (if not, look at these old tutorials!! – however they are OLD and I apologize for bad photos…), so lets do this again and use them in this fun and quick pillow.

SO LET’S GET STARTED!!

Here is what you will need to make this rectangular pillow, (14″ x 20″ ):

• Background fabric – one Fat Quarter is enough but it is tight! (see diagram below). To have a bit more viggle room, you would need about 1/3 of a yard
• Fabric for Flying Geese – small pieces (see cutting list below)

Here is what to cut: (NOTE: if using a FQ, please see the image below for the order of cutting!)

• eight 4.5″ squares – background fabric (used in Flying geese blocks)
• two 4.5″x8.5″ rectangles – background fabric
• two 2.5″x8.5″ rectangles – background fabric
• two 1.5″x14.5″ rectangles – background fabric
• one 2.5″x14.5″ rectangle – background fabric
• one 3″x19″ strip of print #1 (for Flying Geese)
• one 3″x19″ strip of print #2 (for Flying geese)
• one 2″x19″ strip of accent color #1 (for Flying Geese)
• one 2″x19″ strip of accent color #2 (for Flying Geese)
• Chenille-It Blooming Bias tape – I used two different colors in two different widths, but you can change that to your liking – you will need approximately 85″ in length for EACH color/width (depending on how much you want to use, see below)
• To finish the pillow you will need: TWO 14″ squares of fabric for pillow back and optional – 22″x16″ piece of batting and backing fabric if you want to quilt your pillow front, like I did.

After cutting all of your pieces for the pillow top, this is what you should have:

1. First step is to join 3″ and 2″ strips of print and accent colors together, to make a strip-set that will be used for Flying Geese blocks – join strips in desired color combination, LENGHTWISE, with 1/4″ seam allowance:

Here is a little tip for you: when pressing the seams I just did, I first press the seam to set it:

And then I lift up the top fabric and make sure that my seam is completely flat (in other words – no “pleats”) by moving my hand in front of the iron as I go.

Hope this makes sense? And yes, I mostly press my seams to one side, only rarely open (only when block construction really benefits from it, which is rare).

After making your strip-sets for Flying Geese, it is time to add Chenille-It Blooming Bias tape! I choose to do TWO different colors and two different widths of the tape (it comes in 3/8″ and 5/8″ width!), but that is where you can choose to do whatever you like!! I would say that for the extra-fluffy texture you would want TWO layers of the tape, even if you are using same width and same color for both. I just figured – why not have even more fun with different colors! 🙂 Here is my combo:

I choose to stitch my tape right over the seam between two strips, but you can of course do it differently, or even have multiple rows of tape!

As for the tips on sewing it down – for these shorter pieces, I simply laid it down and stitch right in the middle, using my open-toe applique foot (simply because I can see everything better!). However if you need more precision, you could secure the tape with pins and remove them as you go.

Once the tape in sewn on, you want to cut your strip-sets into TWO pieces – each should be 8.5″ long:

Now is the time to make your 3D Flying Geese! I have to say – this is not a new technique, and I had tutorials for it long time ago as well, so you might already know how to do this, or even watch any other tutorial out there, but I will give you a short demo specific for this project:

1. Fold your 8.5″x4.5″ rectangles you just made, WRONG sides together, as shown and press lightly:

2. Once you have them pressed, it is time to make a FG “sandwich”! Place one 4.5″ square of the background fabric right side up and place on it one of your folded and pressed rectangles, so that fold is on the top and your accent color strip is on the LEFT, like shown below (this is very important!!)

Now place the second 4.5″ square of background fabric on top, right side down, as shown below and pin to secure if you need to (I actually don’t):

Keeping that fold on the TOP, and accent color strip on the LEFT, stitch that one 1/4″ seam on the right side of the “sandwich” you just made:

Of course I chain-piece all 4 units. On the photo below, you can also see few FG blocks made with just a PLAIN rectangle that is not pieced – just to remind you that you can do that too, if you like! 🙂

Now lets open, press and make those 3D Flying Geese blocks! Open up the top square and press the seam. (NOTE: the photos below are shown with a block that has PLAIN rectangle instead of strip-pieced one, just to make it little more simple for the process)

Now lift up the folded rectangle and start pulling it to the right, as shown:

Keep unfolding it until your triangle is straight and bottom raw edges of print are aligned with raw edges of the background fabric:

Make sure the tips of your unfolded triangle align with the corners of the background fabric.

Once in place, press it well, with a hot iron (and yes, you can use steam here, just be careful).

Now that I showed you these images with the simple rectangle, here is the full video of how I do the pressing, using the actual block used in the pillow:

Here are all 4 blocks for one version of the pillow:

And here are 4 of them for the other color version of the pillow, also already laid out with the rest of the background pieces, to complete the pillow:

Looking at the image above, lay out your 4 Flying Geese blocks with the rest of the background pieces. Note that my layout is so that FG bocks are offset – so I placed those background rectangles (one 2.5″ tall and the other 4.5″ tall) in opposite places. You can definitely change that if you like! Vertical strips (2.5″ in the middle and 1.5″ one on both sides), between the blocks are there to make the pillow to the 20″ width, as I have that size pillow forms (14″ x 20″ ones. You can adjust that to the size of your pillow forms.

Once you stitch everything together, this is how it looks:

Another alternative for this pillow would be to simply use additional Flying Geese blocks instead of those 4.5″x8.5″ background rectangles – why not?! Here I just placed my extra blocks on top to show you:

Well, once your pillow top is done, you can choose to quilt it or not. I always, always go for quilted texture!! So if you are like me, you would sandwich your pillow top and pick a pretty color of Aurifil thread:

And get on to quilt it a little… I chose some simple loopy meander here with this beautiful dark green/teal thread and it took just about 15-20 minutes… And yes, I did go a little bit under my Flying Geese triangles, carefully so I don’t stitch over them – I just like it that way:

Quilting may not be as visible on this background fabric, but texture is there and that is what we like, right? I also decided to add some more texture with straight stitching with amazing 12wt Aurifil – it is really cool looking!!

Here is one of the pillows all quilted, view from the front and back, thread travels and all 🙂

Once all this quilting is done, you can choose to add some more Chenille-It blooming bias tape, like I did on one of the pillows – I stitched a line on top and bottom of the pillow:

Once you added all the blooming bias tape you want, it is time to finish the pillow. Of course you will trim it if you choose to do quilting like I did and then you need to prepare the back of the pillow. For that, you can take those two 14″ squares of the pillow back fabric and stitch a hem on one of the sides, on each square:

Since each of my 14″ squares had one side with selvage edge, I only folded it once to make the hem. If your edge is raw edge, you would want to fold it twice to have a nice finished hem.

Once you have your back squares hemmed, place one of them, right side down on the right side of the pillow like shown below:

And then place the other square in the same manner and pin everything together to secure:

Stitch it all together going all the way around the perimeter, with generous 1/4″ seam:

I also like to do a zig-zag stitch all the way around to prevent any fraying and have a nice, finished edge, even though that is inside of the pillow and not visible.

Once you turn your pillow cover right side out, you can either top-stitch around the perimeter again or just give it a nice press with a hot iron, and your pillow cover is DONE!! Hooray!!

Now is the time to give it that FLUFF factor and work on your Chenille-It texture. One easy way to achieve that is to simply wash your pillow cover and put it in the dryer after that – blooming bias tape will – BLOOM! However, if you are in a hurry or simply don’t want to wash it just yet – here is what I learned from Sharon Holland (see her many tutorials involving Chenille-It blooming bias as well as Instagram videos on how to fluff it without washing!): you need a spray bottle with water and a nice sharp little brush (mine is just a fingernail brush, or likely a firmer toothbrush will work):

After lightly spraying the bias tape, here is how I do it:

And that is all my friends – your 3D Flying Geese/Chenille-It blooming bias pillow is all done!! Time to insert the pillow form and take it out for a little photo shoot!! Here are my two, slightly different version of the Birds of Paradise pillows:

I simply LOVE the texture that Blooming Bias tape adds and now my had is full of even more ideas on how to play with it!!

And here are two pillows and the quilt to match – don’t forget that you can download full, free PDF pattern for Borneo Nights quilt on my previous blog post!!

I hope you will find this tutorial fun and clear and maybe will be inspired to try it yourself! If you do make it, please share it with me – I would love to see your creations!! You can either email me at contact@maraquiltdesigns.com or just tag me in your social media posts with @mvquilts or with a hashtag #birdsofparadisepillow or #borneonightsquilt – I can’t wait to see your beautiful creations!!

Wishing you joyful summer full of creative adventures!

Love,

Marija