Made for the Crafted Eastertide contest.

I thought I had finished with entries for the Crafted Eastertide contest. But on Easter Sunday the radio station I listen to played Irving Berlin’s Easter Parade.

After hearing the line “I’ll be all in clover...”, those annoying P.I.T.A.s (muses) put a picture in my head… a boy bunny holding a girl bunny’s hand. Her in a hat, and him in a vest covered with shamrocks.

At first I told the P.I.T.A.s that they were nuts, I hadn’t the time. But they kept insisting upon it. So, I went through the scraps, hunted for a template of some sort, and started crafting. I didn’t have any shamrock fabric that would work for what I wanted to do, so the boy ended up with a green vest.

I used a gingerbread man cookie cutter to make their bodies. Their clothes were freehanded using the cookie cutter as a guide line. Their ears and her hat were based on a sketch my mother did for me because I was hesitant to attempt my own freehand ears.

Everything was traced onto Steam-A-Seam 2 (or the Lite version depending on what I had large enough for the pieces), cut to size and laid out on the background fabric. Once I had all my pieces cut out, I fused everything down.
I then freehanded some faces on their heads with a disappearing marking pen, and used two strands of six-strand embroidery floss to make their faces.

After finishing their faces I spray basted a piece of white flannel to the back of the piece and using a thread that nearly matched the embroidery floss I satin stitched (at least what passes for satin stitch using the sewing machine I have with my skills) all the raw edges.

I then used two pieces of flannel backed satin left over from another project to make the back. Stitched around the edges, clipped the corners, and stuffed a pillow form in through the opening in the back.

Voila, another pillow is done.

The pillow form was the only thing purchased specifically for this project. Some of the items were made from scraps; some were from items in the old stash.

The white flannel used for the bunnies and for the inside front of the pillow was a pseudo-scrap from the stash. I don’t remember what I bought it for; it’s been used as snow for our village display at Christmas. It’s been washed several times, but had never been cut into before now.

The pink flannel used in his ears is from fabric I bought for another baby blanket for a family friend. I haven’t made the blanket yet, but I stole a small piece for this project. I’m sure what I took would have been cut off evening the edges... I think...

The blue background fabric was leftover from my first A Hug and a Kiss wall hanging. [link] . Scraps from that quilt have been used before in plushies. [link] & [link]

The green for his vest was a scrap from Baby’s Heritage. [link]

The pink for her dress and hat was the fabric I had originally bought as backing for Slice of Summer. [link] I never used it for the quilt backing because the top had turned out much larger than I originally had planned and I didn’t have enough fabric. I’ve been toying with using it for other projects, but for now, I used a bit here.

There’s also a bit of ribbon used for a belt on her dress and a band on her hat. Both are from the stash. The belt is only stitched down on the two short sides. The band is stitched on three sides. I figure I could slip an artificial flower in the ribbons at a later date if I so choose.

The pillow form is a 16 inch square... but I think the pillow itself is a little less than 15 inches.