I've just finished piecing a set of balsam pillows, and thought you might like to see some production sewing.  I was a bit low on my stock of little trees, which have been a favorite pattern for years, so I chose four different combinations of fabrics...

...and cut all the pieces for 14 pillows of each combination of colors.  That's 56 pillows in all, and since each pillow is made of 13 pieces, that's a total of 728 pieces, all of which are on the board in the picture below...

The next step, of course, is to sew the pieces into little trees.  I decided to piece 24 of them now (6 of each color), and you can see them in process below.  They're all lined up and ready for the first four seams. (Before I'm done, each tree will have 12 seams sewn on it.)

After each sewing proceedure comes a bout of ironing!

Then I keep repeating these two processes until the little trees are all put together; I then finish the top of each pillow with 4 corner triangles, match it with a back, and sew back and front together.  Then it goes off to wonderful Emma, who stuffs the pillow with nearly a pound of dried balsam, and sews the final seam by hand.

And there are the little guys all finished!  They'll be available for sale in my store as soon as they're stuffed.

Meantime, you may want to check out my other balsam pillows.
 

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