Bittersweet Fabric + Skittles Quilted Pillow

Welcome to my stop on the BitterSweet Blog Tour. BitterSweet is the newest line of fabric by Sue Daley for Riley Blake Designs.

If you love bright, bold, saturated colour, and exotic floral and geometric pairings, this range will absolutely delight you. It's a large range, with 24 different colour/print combinations.

BitterSweet works well with a multitude of Riley Blake Basics (ie Swiss Dot, Gingham, Stripes etc) making it a perfect range for contemporary EPP projects.

I'm going through a "circle" stage right at the moment and enjoyed using some of my favourite prints from this range, to create the Skittles Quilted Pillow.

To create this pillow, I created a checkerboard background of 4" squares using BitterSweet Grey and Light Grey. The stripes were positioned in alternating vertical and horizontal directions before sewing the squares together.

Using my circle templates, I chose 2 sizes and traced out 8 of each circle to some Heat'n'Bond. I cut and fused each individual circle to the wrong side of 16 different prints and then cut these out on the drawn lines. I fused the larger circles onto the BitterSweet Light Grey squares and the smaller circles on to the BitterSweet Grey squares.

I machine appliquéd the circles with a simple straight stitch (1.8 stitch length), twice around the raw edges. Once all of the circles were secured, I basted a layer of cotton batting to the back and machine quilted in the ditch and then around each circle with my 1/4" foot. I added a circle of hand quilting around each circle using orange and yellow perle 8 cottons. Honestly, I take every opportunity for a little hand sewing in my projects.

I had such fun planning and playing with these fabrics and am thankful for the opportunity. Visit these other beautiful blogs for the remainder of the BitterSweet Blog Tour.

28 August	Sue Daley	http://www.suedaleydesigns.com/
28 August	Amanda Herring	http://www.thequiltedfish.typepad.com/
29 August	Anorina Morris	http://www.sameliasmum.com/
29 August	Carrie B	www.beribeedesigns.com.
30 August	Sedef Imer	http://www.downgrapevinelane.com/
30 August	Marissa Rae Gun	http://www.raegunramblings.com/
31 August	Sharon Burgess	http://blog.lilabellelanecreations.com/
1 September	Deanne Coombes	http://www.fabricpixie.com.au/blog.asp
4 September	Peta Peace	http://shequiltsalot.com/
5 September	Keera Job	http://livelovesew.com.au/blog-2/
6 September	Alison Von Bibra	https://cottonfactory.wordpress.com/
7 September	Lorraine Lovell	http://www.hettiespatch.com/
7 September	Leonie Bateman	http://www.leoniebatemandesigns.typepad.com/
8 September	Leanne Ivanoff	http://www.sewfab.com.au/blogs/news
8 September	Jina Barney - US	http://www.jinabarneydesignz.com/

BitterSweet by Sue Daley is now available to purchase - visit your local quilt store or Millhouse Collections here in Australia, or Riley Blake Designs for stockist information.

BTW - I have another project in the works, using BitterSweet fabric. It's a slow project which has a lot of hand sewing. I look forward to sharing it with you very soon, but keep a look out over on Instagram for lots of sneaky little progress peeks.