Pretty Batik Pillows

I have recently been making more pillows and pillow covers to put on my Etsy Shop.  Since I mainly make accent pillows, I really like to use fabric that will stand out and add color to a room.  I really love the wonderful colors and designs of batik fabrics.  I also like that these fabrics are hand-dyed and a lot of time goes into making them unique.

The following fabrics caught my eye:

Both of these 2-piece pillow cover sets are for 16"x16" throw pillows and are for sale on my Etsy Shop.

Pinwheel Block

I have been hanging on to a beautiful collection of fabric since Christmas (when I received it for a gift from my mom) and I have been looking forward to making something with it.  The collection is a "Fat Quarter Bundle", which is great for making quilts, because it contains many different types of coordinating fabrics from the same fabric line.  The fat quarter bundle I have is called "Sand Dunes".  (I also purchased two other fabrics from the same line for the border and backing of the quilt.)  The fabrics are very bright and colorful - great for springtime.

While browsing the tutorials on Sew Mama Sew, I came across a tutorial on making a pinwheel quilt.  I really liked the fun bright look of the quilt, so I decided to start making one.  The first thing was to start with cutting the triangles to form the block.  It is amazing how much time of the quilting process is dedicated to preparing the materials (such as cutting and pressing).  First, I cut two   8 1/4" squares - one white (or beige) square and one square of a medium/dark fabric.  Then, I cut them in half diagonally twice to form 4 triangles in each square.

Next, I picked two light-medium fabrics and cut two different 7 7/8 " squares.  Then, I cut these squares in half diagonally once.  These will be larger triangles than the first set. 

Then, I arranged all the triangles to form a pinwheel:

Using a 1/4" seam allowance, I started by sewing the smallest triangles together (white to blue).  Then, I sewed those to the larger triangles.  I ended up with 4 little squares that look like this:

Then, I took those 4 squares and sewed them together to form this pinwheel block:

At the end, I should have 12 of these blocks (3 x 4) with borders and sashing in between each block.  Each block will vary with different combinations of fabric.