Another small finish- improv scrappy quilted pillow

I decided to try my hand at another popular non-quilt project in the quilting world - pillow covers. And since I had an awesome baby sister with a birthday coming up AND some darling scraps from my current big quilt project, I figured that the stars were aligned.

Here is the sister:

She's the second from the left and the youngest.

And here is the pillow:

The fabric line is Bluebird Park by Moda.  It has the cutest little hedgehogs (which is the sole reason I bought it.) Look closely - see them in that orange piece in the bottom left quadrant? There were hedgehogs in Turkey that lived near the base housing and once you've seen those little spiny potatoes, you just can't NOT love them. We used to go looking for them at night. You can see a picture of my mom holding one in this post.

For my big quilt I'm using a jelly roll and layer cake of this line for a fun envelope block quilt using a Missouri Star tutorial. I'll post it when it's finished.  I did a piano key border for the quilt and the leftovers made a great backing. I was even brave enough to put a zipper in. (Yay me!)

I used straight lines and a large spiral swirl for the main block and then did some fun mini swirls and pearls for the negative space. I was pretty pleased with the way the quilting turned out. It's nice to see improvement! (See the hedgehogs?)

This sister has never received a full size quilt from me although I did make her a fun wall quilt when she moved to Texas. (Hey, I guess this one was actually my first mini. Hm... Didn't realize that.)

So although this isn't a full quilt either, (someday Wendy, I promise) it was fun to give her something quilty for her birthday. My mom was visiting us and then visiting her, so she was my delivery girl. So via two airports and a plane ride, it got safely to its new home.