"Perfect Pairs" Heart Cushion

I had a bit of a struggle choosing a border fabric for my "Perfect Pairs" cushion.  I auditioned lots of fabrics from my B&C stash, whittled it down to four, had an inkling that I might go for green, but opened the debate to the IG community for thoughts.

The IG vote was reasonably fairly split between the red and the green options.  So I took these two pics and pondered it for a bit while I was having an afternoon of cutting and prep for various projects.  These pics got a 'green' vote from IG and ultimately, I agreed.  The red did work beautifully blending with the heart block panel, but I think I liked the fresh contrast offered by the green and that it stops the cushion becoming 'too pink' perhaps.

So, borders on, I layered up the batting and hand quilted with some lovely Aurifil 12 wt thread from Pretty Fabrics and Trims.

I kept things fairly simple by just echo stitching the hearts, stitching a little inner border on each of the nine squares, and another little outline just into the green border fabric.

Enough to be well quilted.  Not enough, I hope, to detract from the appliqué and beautiful fabrics which should be the stars of the show, I think.

I backed it with more B&C loveliness using my all time favourite hidden zipper cushion backing method by Just Jude. You can find the tutorial for it here (I always add a little lining piece too).

If you are eagle-eyed enough, you might notice that my cushion isn't quite filled properly and is a bit lumpy and bumpy.  Not having a filler of the correct size, I improvised by wrapping a quilt around a smaller filler - see?  

I was quite proud of that effort until I struggled for ten minutes to get it back out again without damaging the cushion!!

Anyway, enough blab.  Isn't she pretty?  Still have a hankering to do a whole quilt in these.

BUT I MUST RESIST.