12 ½ inch or 12 inch finished |
Many of us around here have heard the old saying, "A visit from a red bird (Cardinal, our state bird) is a visit from a loved one that has passed on." My friend who has lost her son, decided this year to decorate all out for Christmas with Cardinals. Her home is beautiful!
I decided to add to her Cardinal Collection by making a Cardinal block pillow for her. There are several pictures online, but I only found one set of directions and found them to be confusing, especially cutting instructions which had me cutting to many pieces and not large enough. After trial and error, I decided to write my own directions, especially for my future reference, because I have a different way to make the half square triangles than the directions I found. enJOY!
You will need
- 12 White 2½ inch squares
- 8 Red 2½ inch squares
to make using the Magic 8 Method below
7 Red/White Half Square Triangles (HSTs)
7 Green/White HSTs
You will have 1 HST of each leftover.
I printed it a few years ago and placed on my bulletin board for quick reference.
Square 2½ inch square
- 1 Black 3¼ inch square
- 1 Yellow 3¼ inch square
- 1 White 3¼ inch square
- 1 White 3 inch square
- 1 Red 3¼ inch square
- 1 Red 3 inch square
You actually need 2 7/8 instead of 3inch above, but 3 inch is easier to measure.
It will be slightly larger than the HST created?
Pieces will be squared to 2½ inches.
Draw line from corner to corner.
Stitch less than 1/4 inch from line.
Cut apart, press
Place a Red 3 inch square on top of a Red/Black HST
On Red square side stitch corner to corner across the Red/Black seam as shown below.
Place a White 3 inch square of top of the White/Yellow HST
On White square side stitch corner to corner across the White/Yellow HST seam.
Pay attention where the Black and Yellow pieces are located.
Square the final pieces to 2½ inch squares.
I had to do them over.
Lay out all the pieces as follow.
There are 6 rows and 6 columns.
You can now see why the position of the yellow and black pieces is important.
I like to stitch rows first.
Add a 2 to 2½ inch wide strip,
depending on the size of your pillow,
to the sides,
then top and bottom of the block.
Add an envelope back as shown here.
Don't forget to sign and date.
Merry Christmas to Donna
Shared @
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Inspire Me Monday 565 on Create with Joy
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What a lovely gift for your friend - so sad that she lost her son, but hopefully your cardinal will help lift her spirits somewhat.
ReplyDeleteThank you. I love it and love u
ReplyDeleteLovely pattern. I will return to this again as I’m not confident with half square triangles. Thank you for the details.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear about your friend’s son. The pillow is a very thoughtful gift to give her.
Barbara of The Flashing Scissors. 🙋♀️☺️
PS Thank you for your recent comment on my blog.
What a beautiful and thoughtful gift.
ReplyDelete