Call of the Narwhal

Nope, not even I can resist it.

Fortunately for me, Mollie over at Wild Olive created an embroidery pattern that would satisfy the Narwhal Call. (And it’s $2, no less!)

When I got the pattern, I knew I wanted to make it for my girls and make into a pillow. I made the pattern a little bigger than the original (maybe 125%? I didn’t really look, I just wanted the design to be about 8.5″.) and set off.

Mollie is really great about her color choices, but I did add something to just about everything — except the narwhal itself.

For the seaweed, I took three strands of 469 and 520. I’m sort of obsessed with the look of blended colors (ahem, like the Arrow cross-stitch), so it was the way to go. Also, with the coral above the seaweed, I used  three strands of 4110 (a pink variegated color) and a single strand of 720. And finally, with the bubbles, I added a strand of metallic aqua thread to the three strands of 504 to give it that magical look.

The embroidery was a breeze. I love Mollie’s patterns because they’re fun and whimsical. Then, it was onto the quilting part.

Now I haven’t quilted in years. It sort of drives me crazy because I want every seam to match perfectly and that doesn’t happen very often. At all.

My first attempt was ok, but the one side was off by a half inch, so off it went and I fixed it, thinking “This is EXACTLY why I don’t quilt”. The end result is pretty good, but I can see where it doesn’t line up perfectly. (My girls could care less because they have a narwhal pillow.)

Pillow assembly was simple. All I did was take my front piece of fabric, stacked it onto the batting and muslin (ok, lies. I took a scrap piece of fabric that I knew I’d never use instead of the muslin.), then stitched the ditch. When that was done, I got my backing fabric, put pretty to pretty sides together and sewed it all up. (Well, except for the hole so I could flip it inside out.)

Then came my favorite part (snicker), fighting with the pillow form. I try to keep the opening on the top as small as possible because I don’t like doing the ladder stitch. So, yeah, lots of fighting — I’m sure I looked positively ridiculous, LOL

But I got it to work and then, some ladder stitching, and voila! I was done before I knew it!

So, if you’re looking for a super cute, quick, fun project, I suggest you don’t ignore the call of the narwhal.