"Alaskan Show-Off" - complete set

Here’s the entire set!

It consists of a queen size quilt, 4 decorator pillows and 2 wolf pillowcases. When my husband gets to AK, he’s going to stop in at Walmart and get the pillow inserts as needed to complete the set.

Since the pillows are reversible, I wanted to show the second side to you as well!

Of course the quilt gets its share of glory - all by itself -

And while the quilt gets the glory, the pillows took more work than I at first thought that they would.

After quilting, but before trimming

As I was piecing the decorator pillow fronts/backs, the thought struck me rather unpleasantly that “These are pieced - and they won’t wash well if I don’t do something about it - like quilting them!” So, after I finished piecing them (I aimed for 19” or bigger), I quilted them using flannel as the batting, then trimmed them down to 19” and installed the zippers in the bottoms, sewed a 1/2” seam around and they were done after trimming, pressing, etc.

I was pleased. The zippers went in without hitch and look good up close.

The “backs” with one of the names on top.

I didn’t really have pillow forms for the picture - just stuffed some loose batting in the middle - a couple are more stuffed than the others.

The “backs” The simple pieced back used just 3.5” squares. then I trimmed down to make it 19”.

The “fronts”

My prize pillow is this one - I had to find some northern lights to fussy cut and thankfully one of the pieces of Alaskan fabric I had had some that I could use. But this is all I had!

Had I wanted to, I probably could have found some amazing embroidery to create the northern lights, but I wasn’t really in that kind of mood. By now I just wanted to get the whole project done!

Thanks for coming along on this journey!

If you’ve just joined me, this is a gift set for a pastor and his wife in Alaska. We’ve known them for years and years and my husband is flying there in a few days to be a speaker at a conference they are having in their church (which supports us). It’s a small work and they had 10 kids, so while rich in children, have never had much in this world’s goods. (The kids are long grown up now!)

I wanted to make something nice for them that I thought they would love. When we were around them, they were really into the typical “Alaskan lifestyle” of fishing and hunting and such, so I thought this theme was a safe theme for a quilt!

Note:

These “Alaskan” fabrics are not a “set” - they came from various quilt shops in AK - especially Talkeetna, Wasilla and Palmer and Walmart (the eagle/wolf fabrics) and various ebay auctions through the years. I an “equal opportunity fabric shopper!” I will say without a doubt that the quilt shop near the Wasilla Walmart had a wonderful selection of Alaskan fabrics but so did a tiny shop in Talkeetna - fabric is upstairs - downstairs sells t-shirts, jewelry, etc. - which is actually much closer to my husband’s brother/sister and our ‘piece of land’ we own - inheritance from my husband’s dad. Alaska has a huge number of quilt shops considering the number of people in the state.

I used the pattern I put together called “ShowOff” - on the free patterns page. It’s super simple - hardly worthy of a pattern, actually, but since so many people asked, I wrote it up.

I’d be afraid to put this on the ‘net and ruin the surprise, but I’ve never had even an inkling that this couple does much on the internet. :)

Have a great day wherever you are!

And now you know…I spent a good part of the week on the entire project, but it is all done, washed and ready to be folded and put into a “shrink out all the air” bag for travel to a far away place!

---

Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store!

---

---