Broken Dishes

I have a long, sporadic history of making pieced cotton pillow covers and quilts. I made my first quilt in 1977. In the early 1990s I happened to flip through a copy of A Treasury of Amish Quilts by Rachel and Kenneth Pellman in a fabric store. Inside those pages I discovered the Amish quilt pattern called Broken Dishes, and I've been fascinated by it ever since. I love the straightforward, graphic use of solid colored cotton fabrics that Amish quilt makers employ. And Broken Dishes is barely a pattern at all - the order of the triangles is the only requirement. The color arrangement is random - or so it seems. As you can see below, I made considerable effort to orchestrate the arrangement for this pillow.


Here are the triangles, cut from 2" squares, laid out on the counter. I spent quite a bit of time moving them around until I was satisfied.


The finished top. I think I managed to keep all but one row in the desired order! I adore the fact that a mistake like getting the pieces out of order is easily incorporated into the whole.


Here's the cover stuffed with a 20"x20" down & feather pillow insert. Hey, what's that black fuzzy thing on the right side?


Oh . . . it's my little helper, Miss Bettie!

This pillow was a gift for my dear friend D. It looks really nice on the blue couch in her office.