Santa Pillows

Continuing my love affair with Lella Boutique pillow patterns, I kept with the seasonal theme and set out to make the Sew Jolly Santa pattern.  

I pretty much kept close to the suggested color scheme for the pattern, but instead of gray for the background I went with a pale blue swirl, like whirling, curling snow. This brings to my mind the lyrics from the Let It Go song from the movie Frozen... "The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside". For the white, pink, rose, and coral of Santa's face I stayed with solids. For the hat trim and hat pop-pom, I picked a bit more adventurous print with a white-ish/beige-ish background. This print will also be the backing of the pillows. I am proud to brag that all fabric came from my stash.

Once I cut out the pieces, my tray looked like controlled chaos, an improvement over past Lella Boutique reindeer pillows. It  may seem obvious, but it made a huge difference to clip the Alphabitties to their respective pieces so they did not slid around and under other piles on the tray. The Fat Quarter Shop sells Alphabitties with an integral clip, but my method worked just fine using Wonder Clips with simple Alphabitties.

My biggest struggle was selecting the fabric for the fur of the hat trim and the pom-pom. I wanted white but it needed to be distinguished from Santa's beard and eyebrows. Then of course I thought and rethought and overthought how to fussy cut it for the fur parts. I wanted the pom-pom to coordinate them with the brow trim. This approach worked for two of the three Santas but not for the one on the far left. It had a dark green portion of a Christmas tree in it that weighed too prominently. For that Santa I took out  half Christmas tree pom-pom and substituted in a fussy cut round starburst reminiscent of those peppermint candies. Not it looks like a pom-pom and not half a pom-pom. The time invested carefully picking out those four seams was well worth it.

I especially love the backing fabric. I think my 2026 New Year's resolution is to use fabric that I love now and not save it for some mythical "something special" in the future. There will always be more fabrics that I love that I then will have room to buy. Plus, what I love changes with time and I would hate to pass up a "window of love" only to have a future "window of indifference".

I have pieced three Santa blocks, each about 18" square. I have FMQ'd those I am sending off as gifts but the FMQ of my own I have put on a back burner. One has a clamshell pattern oriented to look like garlands and the other has waves intended to look like rolling hills of snow. I used a very pale blue thread, instead of white, to hint at snow drifts. One has a pom-pom like a red starburst snowball and the other has a pom-pom like pine tree needles. 

I just mailed them off this morning, so now I can spare some time to finish off my own Santa pillow. Since I am undecided on the FMQ pattern, I may try something unique and different. I am considering swirls; I am not very good at those, so this just might be the right-sized project to practice on.

Two Reindeer Pillows

The Lella Boutique seasonal pattern of a reindeer put me in a merry mood. I had such fun with a Frank pattern by the same designer that I'd made four Franks. The process and photos for the Franks are in my posts for 9/24/25, 10/1/25, and 10/18/25. Now I am switching from a Halloween theme to Christmas one with this Merry Reindeer pattern.

I pretty much kept with the suggested color scheme for the pattern but chose a slighter stronger variation. For the brown of the reindeer's coat I picked an orange-toned rust. I picked a darker gray background that had colored dots that look like confetti snow. Some of the orange dots are like the reindeer and the overall darker tone will make the white antlers pop. Once I cut out the pieces, my tray looked like chaos, but it was a controlled cacophony. I am proud to brag that all fabric choices came from my stash.

For a second reindeer I learned that if I cut the background fabric first, (the later letters M thru W of the alphabet), the rust fabric pieces I needed to access initially to sew up the face would not be buried. The main rust fabric for the reindeer was letters A thru G. Here are two reindeer assembled. The leftover triangles from their chins made up into a cute pinwheel. Pinwheel destination is TBD; I just like to collect random pinwheels from cut-off corners.

When I looked in my supply for some pieces of batting I found I did not have any the correct size. On small items I do not mind piecing the batting so I did. For short seams keeping square is not an issue and the zig-zag joint does lie flat.

Then I needed to decide an FMQ pattern and decided on waves using my HQ F-wave ruler with a wave height of 1.5 inches and a wavelength of 4". Waves are like the undulating hills of snow over the river and through the woods on the sleigh ride to grandma's house. To set the spacing between the waves I drew a wave with a viewgraph marker on each of three plastic sheet protectors. I then stacked them and shifted them until I found a spacing that looked pleasing to me. It turned out to be 1.5", which makes sense considering the wave height is 1.5".  Then I put tape on the ruler to help me keep a uniform spacing relative to the previous wave.

For the second reindeer I used a HQ Clamshell template. On my Frank pillow I had used a 2" size but, for the reindeer, I went a bit larger to a 3" size, on the bottom, and oriented them so as to be reminiscent of garlands. I worked the clamshell rows on the second reindeer from the top down.

I then made these 17½" squares into pillow coverings by adding a back. Rather than the overlap method, I install a zipper in the bottom. Inserting the zipper is not hard since I do that bottom edge first while the covering is flat. Later I sew the remaining three sides. This method also takes less fabric than the overlap technique and I am able to use a fat quarter. I select fat quarters with a cute print that would get lost if cut up into pieces for patchwork. I used the clothesline print on the left for a pillow for my daughter. I liked how the white tree silhouettes seem to imitate the white antlers. The snow globe print on the right is for the pillow I am keeping. The orange, red, and blue of their bases echo the multi-colored paint splatters in the reindeer background fabric.

I use a 14 " zipper and a pre-made 20" pillow form so it is extra plump. I add a label diagonally in an upper corner, placing the label higher rather than low down so as not to add extra bulk to the zipper area. Here is the front of my pillow followed by and the front a back of the unstuffed reindeer to go to my daughter. My daughter will add the pillow form at her end. It is much easier to ship that way.

Yes, I really do enjoy this pattern; but no, I do not intend to make six more reindeer to bring the total to eight. However, there very well may be some other Lella Boutique patterns in my quilting future. A jolly Santa perhaps...?