A cheerful little pillow

A few days ago, I took a mini break from quilting my Kitchen Window quilt and finished a little project I'd been dreaming about for a few days — a cheery, sunny, little heart pillow.

The pillow is for my grandmother, who, as I wrote back in October, is currently battling cancer for the fourth time. She's recently been through a particularly rough patch of complications, which led to surgery and now a (hopefully) brief stay in an assisted living home, and I really wanted to send her something to cheer her up and let her know we were thinking about her.

The assembly for the pillow was based on this tutorial. I used several pink, coral, and orange fabric scraps for the front patchwork and surrounded them with a cream solid (maybe Kona bone?). I used quilt as you go to attach the patchwork to a piece of batting but then decided not to do any other quilting other than the applique around the heart, just to keep it simple. The back is a coordinating madras print from Hancock's that has made several previous appearances on the blog (here, here, and here at least).

The pillow, which I wanted to be just a little decorative item, measures about 10" square. It's filled with poly-fill and machine-stitched closed. I was planning to mail it off last week but then received a request from my mom for another item for Grams, so I plan to finish that up and then send them off together, hopefully just in time for arrival back at home. I hope they bring a little spring cheer into a gloomy situation.