It’s a Quilt, It’s a Pillow, It’s a Quillow

Have you been looking for something a little different to do with your quilt than the super popular quilt coat? Well let me introduce you to the quillow. It’s a quilt with a pouch that folds up into a tidy pillow; which makes it great for traveling or decluttering your living space.  

Using the new Camp Woodland fabric by Natalia Juan Abello for Riley Blake Designs (pictured below) I made considerably the cutest travel quillow for my kid. 

Below is a preview of what the quillow looks like when it is folded into the pillow option. 

And here is what the actual throw quilt looks like. Isn’t this quilt just stunning? Thanks to Penelope Handmade for making the Ebb and Flow Quilt Pattern; which is great for showing off prints. 

Now to get to the nitty gritty, how does one make a “quillow”? Well technically you could take any finished quilt and make it into a quillow, neat I know! Step one, make a quilt, any pattern will do, but preferably a quilt that is either 48” or 54” to make a 16” or 18” square. If it’s not that size don’t worry, you can still make a quillow. To determine how large your quillow will be and what size of pouch to make take your quilt width and divide by 3. Ex. 54”/3=18” pillow. Here’s my finished Ebb and Flow Quilt. 

Now that you’ve made a quilt, we need to make the quilted pouch portion of the quillow. In order to do this, we will make a pieced or whole cloth mini quilt. This will be the pillow front, so lets make it pretty. You can see in my example I used leftover pieces from my Ebb and Flow Quilt to create a 19”x21” oversized pieced top. 

I then basted and quilted to preference as shown below. 

Since my pieced pouch top was a little large, I trimmed it down to 18” square to scale my throw size Ebb and Flow quilt (54”).

The next step is to finish the pouch by using your preferred method of binding. 

Now that we have both a throw quilt and a mini quilt, we can attach it, so the quilt folds into a pillow. Turn over your quilt, so the backing is right side up.

Determine which side you would like to be the top or bottom. Using a disappearing marker or a Hera marker, mark the middle of your quilt above the binding and then another mark the amount of your pouch size, mine is 18” for example.

Next, mark the middle of your mini quilt. Lay your mini quilt right side up so the decorative side is seen aligning the marks with the marks on the quilt. Baste using your preferred method of basting. I prefer to baste using Elmer’s Glue.

We are so close! Now that your pouch is basted into place we will use invisible thread in our bobbin, Superior Threads monofilament, is my preferred thread brand and stitch the mini quilt to the larger quilts back. We will start on the top right corner as shown, and go 3/4 way around to the top left corner, and then stop, secure the stitch and come back the same 3/4 by stitching in the binding ditch. I prefer to use a walking foot for this part. Be extremely careful not to stitch across the top of our mini quilt to ensure we have a pouch when we are done not a patch. 

Now what? Well now you have a quillow, but I am sure you are asking how to fold it, so lets do that.  You will lay your throw quilt with your top facing up.

You will continue by folding 1/3 width of your quilt inward and then doing the other side the same to make a long fold that is your throw quilts height and your mini quilts width.

Now fold your quilt towards your pouch about two equal folds so it is the same size as your pouch and stuff that baby into your pouch. Now you have a quillow. Both equal parts elegance and bomb dot com. 

Now for more pictures of this adorable quilt in the wild.