Welcome to my day on the It’s a Guy Thing Blog Hop, hosted by Carol of Just Let Me Quilt! When Carol announced this blog hop, I immediately knew what I would make. The trouble was I had put the pattern in a “safe” place and couldn’t find it!! I bet that’s never happened to you, huh?! Well, I started going through all the “safe” places in my studio and finally found it!! Thanks, Carol, for hosting this fun hop and for the prod to do a little cleaning!! I hope you will enjoy this project. I had a few trial and error fun times, but it is finished!! And my non-quilting sweetie pie loves it too. I am so thankful he is supportive of my “habits!!” LOL
Several years ago, my LQS had a free pattern booklet by Moda. I picked it up and looked at it for quite a while before I put it in that safe place! LOL After finding it again, I contacted Moda and received permission to use it, as well as the ok to share my redrafted block and instructions for this blog hop. Thank you, Moda Fabrics! The pattern is still free as a download at this link. This block is approximately 22 inches, which is a bit larger than I wanted for this project, thus the redrafted block, which I will share with you as well.
For this project, I decided to make a pillow and to use my Crafter’s Edge Crossover II (which is on sale the month of July for 25% off!! The sale price will show when you add it to your cart.) I used the Beautiful Posey Flowers Set 1 dies in two of the sizes for the appliques. This project uses Square dies also!
As I was deciding which fabrics to use, and having some awesome green floral batiks, I thought about all the Hawaiian shirts some guys enjoy wearing. I’ve tried to get mine to wear one, but he’s a T-shirt kinda guy! So I decided this would be the next best thing! LOL Plus, I immediately thought of the Posey Flower dies for embellishment!
So I redrafted the block in EQ8, to come up with this 12 inch block.
Next I added some borders and cornerstones to make it into an 18-1/2 x 18-1/2 inch pillow!
Now even more fun! Adding the chosen fabrics, piecing the pillow, cutting appliques, (my sweet granddaughter helped with this process – she loves using the Crossover II!) stitching them on, and quilting! And here is the final result!
The shirt fabric and back are coordinates I bought from a vendor at our guild quilt show several years ago (not exactly Hawaiian, but pretty close!” The teal blue and mustard are Moda Grey basic grunge. The sides and top are Island Batik Almond basic. The shirt “opening” would normally be the shirt fabric using the wrong side, but since this is a batik, I had to improvise and found this in my stash also. I used rulers for stitch in the ditch and the waves in the borders. Then I added straight lines on each side of the center as a “placket” and stitched the buttons on with my domestic machine. As you can see the front collar is “detached!” I decided to go “rogue” on the envelope back and try something a bit different. I had a brain malfunction when I first stitched it all together and had to unstitch it partially and rethink my strategy, but I learned a lot making it! I was going to have it look like a regular envelope, but opted to make it a little more fancy, and I love the final result!
If you would like, here is a tutorial and pattern for my pillow. Again, thanks, to Moda Fabrics for allowing me to share this with you! Click the image to go to Payhip for this FREE tutorial!
Would your sweetie wear this Fruit Juicy Hawaiian Shirt?? You know I must leave you with this ear worm, cause “Every Girl’s Crazy ‘Bout a Sharp Dressed Man!!” (I do not own the lyrics to this song!)
And one last thing. Here is a favorite pic of my niece Stephanie with Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top. She worked as a cashier at Costco in Michigan and when he shopped there, he would always go through her line!
Thanks so much for visiting today. I hope you will check out my fellow bloggers “Guy Things!”
Scrapdash
That Fabric Feeling
Elizabeth Coughlin Designs
Quilt Schmilt
The Colorful Fabriholic
Songbird Designs (YOU ARE HERE!)
Adorable and a great use of the CE dies
Love it Brenda! Perfect for a guy and looks like a lot of fun to make! xx
Your pillow rocks! Thank you for sharing.
What a fun shirt. Love your fabric choices and your envelope closure is wonderful.
What a cute idea!! Love it. Thanks for linking up with TGIFF!
Your shirt pillow is so adorable. Love the Hawaiian theme! Love the collar!
Brenda my DH and his friends all call their Hawaiian shirts Ugly Shirts. Some of his are getting tires so I just might have to make him a quilt! ?. I love your pillow with the fancy back and sweet floppy collar. Thank you for sharing the stories and photos.
My hubby has quite a collection of hawaiian shirts and he would love to add this one . Nice work
What a cute, cute block and pillow. You did it perfectly. I did laugh when you talked about ‘misplacing’. It’s really irritating when I find it right out in the open or where I’ve looked already.
My husband loves ZZTop — especially “sharp dressed man”!! I just saw where the bass player passed away! So sad
Love your block!! just love the shirt
Super fun pillow, thank you for sharing!
You’re so smart! This is so neat, and definitely great for a pillow made with any man’s shirt. Thanks for sharing!
Oh my gosh…that is absolutely awesome. I love the original pattern and your redrafted one. That 3-D collar is perfect. Thanks for sharing the pattern…I see it in my stack of must do’s and hopefully it won’t get lost for too long! LOL!!
Apparently you and I were on the same path of setting this pattern aside for sewing at a later date. I love the Hawaiian shirts in this and making it into a pillow was a brilliant idea…so much easier! I tried to pin the finished shirt, but it wouldn’t let me grab it from the slide show. Thank you for sharing this beautiful idea of a shirt pillow and for hopping with us!
Great project!!! I love the pillow closure on the back. Very unique!
Aloha Brenda! Mahalo for the Hawaiian shirt block. Your pillow is beautiful!
Love it!! Had to download even before I commented!!! I gave a ‘Hawaiian shirt’ to my grandson 5 years ago…..and the skinny boy can still wear it. I want to turn it into something when he finally outgrows it! This is perfect!! Thanks for the free pattern. I wondered if you put fusible on the back of your applique fabric before you run it thru your die cutting machine?? My scan & cut recommends that, and to be honest, cutting fabric is why I wanted it. BUT, I have mostly used it for paper! HAHAHA.
Glad your granddaughter likes to work in your sewing room with you creating.
What a fun pillow Brenda and love the addition of the buttons on the shirt!
Awesome, I love the prairie point collar. It would also be pretty cool to use a button to hold that collar point down.
Fantastic pillow; so much fun! Thanks for the tutorial.
Hi Brenda! What a fun and fabulous pillow! It’s so darn cute and the fabrics you chose along with the stitching just pushes it over the edge to an even better place. LOVE it! Thanks also for the link to the original pattern as well as to your tutorial. You knocked it out of the park. ~smile~ Roseanne
Hi Brenda!! I love your Hawaiian shirt pillow and the fun and colorful fabric that you used. The 3D collar is awesome as well as the shirt placket front with the buttons. Embellishments really add a lot and you pillow is spectacular !!
Very cute pillow and pattern block. Adding the buttons really embellish it well.
Love the block and the story. I could see this block made with flannel shirts or dress shirts as a memory block pillow or quilt. Great post about your process for taking a pattern and reducing it to the size you wanted.