Breast Cancer Pens

jenny: hi i'm jenny from the missouri starquilt company and i'm here with vanessa christenson vanessa: hi! j: and we at the missouri star quilt companywent on the road and we came to iowa to meet vanessa. we're here in her kitchen, this isso much fun! vanessa has a wonderful blog called v & co. is that right? v: mmhmm j: jacob happened to go on the blog one dayand see this awesome pleated pillow and wanted to reproduce that. so tell us about how youcame up with this. v: well as you know, i have three boys beforei have my little girl and it's really easy

to sew ruffles and whatever for little girls.so my boys always feel like they get jipped out of getting things made for them. so, itried to come up with something that was still along the lines of what i really like, whichis texture, and something more manly. so, i figured pleating would probably be the bestthing to do. j: it's a great idea. v: and i came up with using this the silentfilm by kona solids and it's just a jelly roll. it's actually not even using a fulljelly roll. so, you can actually make multiple pillows just from one jelly roll. j: did you tell me or i read somewhere thatyou can make three of them?

v: yes. j: from a jelly roll. that's awesome! threepillows! j: let's show a couple of other ones thatwe put together. we've got down here, we've got this cute little one that we did withpatterns and some grays and whites. it's really cute. then this one is just a kaleidoscopeof colors. v: yeah, actually on my flickr group there'sbeen a lot of people showing, just using all different colors of fabrics. it's amazingwhat one idea, j: oh that's so fun! v: when you use different colorways it turnsout really cool.

j: so, what you're going to need to make thispillow is, you're going to need a piece of background fabric. i cut mine to 18”x20”but really these pillows can be made any size you want. it's really a scrap, a fat quarter,any size you want to do. actually, a fat quarter is the perfect size because that's about theright size isn't it. v:yup. j: you'll need a jelly roll. you're gonnaneed a ruler and a pen. we're using these frixion pens because if you make a mistakewith your lines like i did yesterday you can just quickly iron them off. you'll also needa scissor and a rotary cutter so that you can cut your, well, our strips are cut, butyou'll cut the ends of them and trim up the

sides. so, we're going to open up this jelly rolland i most of you who know me know that color i am not very good at picking colors so ilet a designer do that. hence we got her! she's good at color so she's gonna go throughthis. this is one of those bella solids warm jellyroll it's called. she's gonna go through and pick some colors that she likes. v: i just think that the blue and the greenlook so beautiful together and if we do maybe the white along with it. j: oh gosh, that is gonna be pretty.

v: i think it reminds me of the beach. j: yeah, that's gonna be really pretty. v: so, i think if we use the blues, greens,and whites in that. if we need more strips then we can always add a little bit of a splashof color as well, but i think. j: there's a couple more blues and greensin there too. it's hiding. v: perfect. j: it doesn't take really very many. v: no, you only need three strips for thepillow that i have on my website. you only need three strips of each colorway, and you'llneed five, let's see. one, two, three, four,

five different colors, but if we're doing,let's say, three colors then you would just need more strips of each color. so, i thinkthat would look really beautiful. j: that is going to be really pretty. it'sso nice to have somebody make that choice for me! ok so, we have to get this cloth readyto do it. so what is it we're going to do here. v: ok so, i started off with drawing lines.the first one, the bottom one is going to be 1 â¼â€ from the bottom edge. so, draw your line, your first one 1 â¼â€up. now to overlap your pleats and so that it doesn't show your sewing, your stitch.you'll want to only go â¾ of aline up from

your first. j: oh, ok, so the first one is 1 â¼â€ andfrom then on we are going to do â¾â€. v: yeah. j: ok, let me see here. get that all niceand straight there we go. i love these frixion pens i was trying to get one ready to do andi read the 1 â¼â€ and so i marked the whole thing 1 â¼â€ and it wasn't what i was supposedto do but because this pen when you use it you can just, it's removable with heat, andso you can just erase that with an iron. so, i was very fortunate with that. v: yeah i'm really excited to use that pen!*laughter*

j: i think every two year old should haveone of these pens so that when they color on the walls you can just *laughter* ironthem off or blow dry them off! the heat takes it off! v: that'll be great. j: it's very, very fun! ok, so, then whatyou do is, you just want to do â¾â€ lines all the way up till you get to the top ofyour fabric. whatever size it is you just need those â¾â€ lines. so, i'll keep doingthat and we'll get back to you in just a sec. ok, so now i've drawn all my lines on hereand i'm up to the very last one, and it looks like i have about â¼â€ left. is that right?

v: yes, because when you do your seam thenyou'll actually not grab the last pleat j: perfect! alright, so now here's what thislooks like. see, i have my lines drawn on and that is what we're going to lay thesepleats on. correct. v: yes, so, i've separated these into fivecolors. so, and you can't actually really tell that there's to much of a differencebut there really is. i think that will be a very beautiful subtle change in color tothe very last one. it really reminds me of sea grass. what i'm going to do is i'm goingto take scissors. j: uh huh. v: i'm just going to really easily, the lineis already there, cut it and each strip will

make two pleats. j: ok, then you want me to? v: go ahead and fold it in half lengthwise. j: ok, and iron it. v: uh huh. j: alright. v: and we'll do that to all of these strips. j: ok, so will you cut and i will iron. therewe go. v: as a matter of fact, can you just comeand hang out with me every so often.

j: i know! i was just thinking that! it'sso nice to have a cutter. v: it's really nice to have someone else dothe other part of it! so, we'll just go through each individual strip. each individual stripbecomes a pleat when you fold it in half and iron it. while she's ironing i'll show you,this is your bottom right here. your bottom is the 1 â¼â€ and the top is just the â¼â€,the leftover on the top. so, what we're going to do is, we're goingto start off by placing your first strip, just right up to your drawn on line. we'vealready ironed all of them up and so now we need to decide how we want them to lay onthe pillow. i think a really good way of doing it, kindof like the other one that i had done, is

go from the darker on the bottom and go, leadup to the lighter. so, if you can see this, there's actually just a slight variation inthese two greens, and then there's a slight variation on these two kind of like aqua-yblue. then we'll lead up to the white. j: the cream. v: the cream sorry j: *giggles* v: cream. i don't think this is that one ithink it goes there. ok, so i'm going to start off first with this kind of bluish aqua, seaglassy looking one, and we're going to do the five of them.

j: ok, so we'll have one left? v: *counting* yes, we have one left always.wow, sorry about that. ok so we're going to do five and then the next group we're goingto do the same color but then we'll go with the lighter shade. then what i think wouldbe fun to do is the darker color of the green, right here, and then we'll go with the lightergreen and next. i think that's going to look really pretty. then we'll end with the creamon the top. you think that's? j: i think that's going to be beautiful! v: i think that'll be pretty. ok, so let'sgo and start with, keep these separated. we've cut six but we only need five so if you don'tmind grabbing one from each pile.

j: oh, i don't j: ok, so we'll sew these on and we'll seeyou back here. v: alright, so, we've sewn on our first strip.now for the second strip, we're going to line it up again to the next line. again, it'slonger but there is no salvage on this one so it really doesn't matter where you starton that one. i just want it to kind of butt up against the first. so, i've set it up that we're going to dothe next one and we're going to do â¼â€. i just always guide the strip as i move along.so that i make sure it's up next to the line. j: and you use five strips of each color toget this look.

v: yes j: that's so fun. really you can do anything.it's up to your... v: taste. j: yeah, your taste and your artistic, leeway. v: you can do all one solid color. you cando all different patterned fabrics. i tend to be much more on the simplistic side ofthings. so, i always tend to play more with color than i do with pattern, but patternis a lot of fun. it'd be a great thing to use a pattern that ties the colors on yourfront for the back. j: oh that's a great idea.

v: there we have the next one just done. so,that's your â¼â€ seam. versus the just kind of closer to the edge. really there's no bigdifference, i just like to do it closer to the edge. now we're going to continue to doall of the rest of the strips. at least these next five ones. we'll move to the next colorafter that. j: ok, so, we've finished sewing on all thesepleats and it's beautiful, but i'm just not sure about this right here. v: yeah, i'm having a little bit of a hardtime with the cream. i don't really think it flows with the rest of the pillow. so,i think what we've decided is that we're going to not use the white and we're going to actuallyend the pillow with the top green. with the

light green that we have on the top. so whatwe've already done is we've cut off... j: the rest of the pillow! we've just cutit off! v: we did! we cut off the rest of the pillow.which is what's great. there's no real set dimension on this one that we started. wewere just going with the flow and so we've decided to cut, what we need to do is cutâ¼â€ above the last line. j: that's for your seam. v: yes. ok, now what we're going to do, youcan take those. j: ok, we'll get rid of that white. v: so, what we're going to do is we're goingto use this last green strip which is the

fifth one. because we were doing five alongthe way. we're going to do â¼â€ seam along the edge. then we're going to open it up andpress it. j: and this is going to be like the cap strip. v: yes the last one. you don't want this lastedge to be raw. so, we're going to make it look really nice and solid. j: nice and finished. v: finished. i see you. j: *laughter* this is so gorgeous! i lovehow this looks. v: i think it's turned out really nice. ok,so we have a â¼â€ seam, and now what i need

you to do is press it open. j: ok. v: press it like this so that we have a nicelittle edge there. j: a little cap. alright, so you want me toopen up this seam then? v: so it will lay flat better. j: ok, so we're going to iron this open. sometimeseasier said than done, but our little point of the iron is braving the way. alright therewe go. keep it in the middle. the reason we're opening this is just so that it will lay flatter,is that right? v: yes so that it will lay flatter and sothat it gives you the nice flat seam if that

makes sense. j: it does make sense. my seam's wanting towander. let me see here if i can get this end. there we go. pull that toward the middlea little bit. well it's a good thing this seams going to be hidden. *laughter* v: it's ok. so, now we have this right hereand we want to make sure that we cover that last seam. you can because we haven't reallybeen sticking to too much of a measurement with our lines. we're going to, even thoughwe're not butting upright against that line, we're going to just make sure the main thingthat we're focusing on is to cover that seam. j: do you want me to draw another line?

v: yeah that might be good. j: ok so we can put a line that's â¼â€ in. j: because it might have just been that mylines were off. this is what's cool about these projects. you just make it work andfor instance, you may want to make it to fit a certain sized spot you're putting it in.if you have a chair that you want it to fit in exactly then you could make the pillowfit the area you want it to go. v: right, right. j: so, now we have a line. it's always easier,i think, to sew with a line. don't you? v: right, and here, this one i like to doa smaller seam allowance, because it gives

it a very nice clean finish when we sew iton. this one will be the scant stitch. j: so, you're going to top stitch this basically,right along this edge. v: yup. j: ok, perfect. v: here we go top-stitch it. let's move thisover real quickly there you go. i'm going to top-stitch. j: and people just love to top-stitch on cameradon't they?! j: *laughter* v: yeah, whatever. i'll figure out where youlive!

j: that's right! aaah! v: i like to line it right inside that littledip on my foot. j: right it gives you a little guide. v: that way it gives you a little bit of aline there to follow. j: and you can match your thread for yourcolor as well. v: yes. actually in my tutorial on my sitei do actually change threads throughout the project. so, that the lighter threads go withthe lighter fabrics and of course the darker ones have the really dark strips. that wayit also will make sure that you don't see your stitch very easily.

j: you did a very good job! that's reallybeautiful! v: surprised it turned out that good! *laughter* j: you just never know. v: so, there we have the top-stitch j: a finished top! look at that! it's beautiful! v: but it looks kind of wonky because werestill not completely done. so, what we're gonna do next is we're going to turn it overand with our rotary cutter, and our ruler, we're going to cut off the excess. j: so, we're just going to line it up withour fabric edge, because from the back you

can see that very easily. j: then to finish this because we now havean undetermined size. we can use this as a pattern for the back as well. j: i'm going to move all these threads outhere so they all get trimmed off at the same time. v: yeah there's a lot of threads there. j: that's how we do it. alright, so we dothose. lay that down. we'll have to do a little bit of trimming. there we go. alrighty, solet's just trim that off. collect these a little bit. be very careful doing that. therewe go.

v: so, when we turn it around you get a reallypretty idea of what your pillow is going to be like. j: so now we have our finished pillow here,and because we trimmed it it's a different size than our back and we've got this yellowpiece here so that you can see the contrast all the way around. what we're going to dothen is we're going to put right sides together, like this. we're going to go ahead and trimright around this pillow so that they're exactly the same size. so let's go ahead and do that.i have this little mat so it'll just take a minute longer, but basically what i'm doingis on this side is i'm cutting the salvage off and i'm cutting right up to the edge wherethe pillow is. a piece right there.

then, i'm going to turn this and i think whati'm going to do is scoot this right down to the edge so that i have one less side to cutbecause that cut is straight. then i'll move this over here and trim this off. so, to attachyour top to your back you're going to go ahead and stitch â¼â€ across the top and town thesides and then you're going to come right across here and leave what a 6” opening,you think? v: right. for the bottom one i just want tomake sure that if you don't want your pleat to be sewn in. it'll be fine if it is sewnin i just personally left it un-sewn. i wanted it to be free. v: so, i actually pushed in my pleat justever so slightly so that when i did do my

â¼â€ seam it did not get caught in it. j: oh ok! perfect. ok, so let's look at theone you've got there. so, we can look at the bottom of that pleat. v: and then here's the pleat. so, you cansee how... j: oh yeah, it's a little bit on the edgeand then in the middle. v: and then this is free. j: then this is her hand-sewing right herewhere you're going to put all the fluff. j: and fill it out to the size that you wantit and then hand-stitch it closed. v: yup, hand-stitch it closed.

j: and then finished it looks like this. v: and i think the green one is going to lookreally pretty too. j: oh, it's going to be beautiful. i can hardlywait to get it all together and get the back on it. so, this is the final pillow i thinkthis is just gorgeous. the green one is beautiful also so let's take another look at that. thisis how our green one is going to look. i'm just going to go ahead and scoot this outof the way. so this is how our green one is going to look. so, we hope you enjoyed this tutorial on howto make a pleated pillow with vanessa christenson from the missouri star quilt co.