Poison!

Poison Bottles – Pick Your Brain Designs

My high school self would have loved to have owned Misty Cole’s Poison Bottle Quilt, so I was thrilled when she asked me to do the May block. I collected fun bottles and had them lined up on shelves that circled my bedroom, everything from vintage bottles to new bottles with bright labels. I have since transitioned out of the phase and only have 2-3 unique bottles floating around the house. This block was fun to make because it forced me to think about bottles in a completely different way.

Be sure to check out all of Misty’s blocks and blog posts to see how she and other’s interpret them.

The May blocks feature the Martin’s UBend (top) and Gilbertson’s Wedge (bottom). Based on the history, I decided that I wanted to both bottles to have a broken, fragmented look. I achieved that look two ways – UBend is a solid piece of fabric and Wedge is fabric made from green scraps. The blocks are appliquéd, which is a new technique for me. I densely quilted the shelf with horizontal lines and added some simple diagonal lines around the bottles.

Instead of turning it into a mini, I decided to make this a pillow for my chair at work. I used a new to me technique to add a flap to cover the zipper by following this great tutorial from Sew Mama Sew. I loved their tip of adding fusible tape to help with installing the zipper. I will be using that trick from now on with all of my zippers!

Pillow Details

Title: Poison, May 2016
Pattern: Poison Bottles by Misty Cole of Pick Your Brain Designs
Front: Fabric from my scraps bins, background is Quilter’s Linen in Platinum
Quilting: Aurifil White, 50 weight
Finished pillow size: 12.5 x 12.5″