tale as old as time - beauty and the beast themed pillow set

when lisa started to jump in to the instagram swap game, it wasn't until too late in the game that the disney mini quilt swap was discovered.  such a shame.  i've joined and even organized a few disney swaps on craftster, and they're always a favorite topic to craft for.  so instead, i sat on the outside, checking the hashtag every so often, and oogling at all the disney quilt goodness.  on a random day, i cruised over to craftster and looked at the swap angel board just to see if anything looked fun.  and there it was, disney swap round 12 needed someone!  after a day-ish of thinking on it, i committed to the job and awaited to hear from the gal i'd be sewing for.  then, i found out she had been waiting since AUGUST... yikes!  they wanted a project sent out within two weeks, with a "large" item being one of the items (large = 3 hours or so to make).  my vision was born, and the ball was rolling.  she wanted something for her new house that wasn't cheesy disney.  i hit up fandom in stitches, found the perfect paper pieced patterns, and had kinkos blow them up 240%.  the next day, i bought my fabric, and two days later, i was spending my entire day paper piecing.
one of her favorite movies listed was "beauty and the beast" so i selected chip as well as the enchanted rose to turn in to pillow slip covers.  originally i was set on them being 12", but the smallest square pillow form i could find was 14" so i added a slight border to it.  on sunday i did BOTH of the entire blocks, start to finish, and prepared myself to get ready to do the quilting/sandwiching on monday.  i found that i didn't have any blue thread so i had to run to joann's that night (bummer) and then knocked out the remains of the quilting on both as well as the "envelope" portion of it.
i found a few tutorials on pinterest that described how to make these types of pillow covers.  my grandma had made them for years for my mom & aunt for christmas, so it was a good visual to take a peek at an actual one as well.  the ink used by kinko's was something awful, and left black marks all over the lightest pieces of each block.  so frustrating.  but after a date with a specific stain fighter for ink and a spin in the wash, they were good to go.  packed them up, and then they were shipped out on saturday.  less than a week start to finish, not too shabby!
she initially mentioned that she liked the enchanted rose as a good representation for beauty and the beast, and i have to agree!  i really love this block, whether for beauty and the beast or just to simply be a paper pieced rose.  i cannot imagine this at the 5ish inch size it initially was before i blew it up.
i thought this chip was a good "subtle" match to the rose pillow, as it wasn't a giant princess face.  he was a simple little block (i made him second after the rose) and it just powered right through.  i think he's a pretty cute little guy in movie form anyways, and would absolutely make this block again.  shoot, it has made me want to go through and make so many more disney blocks from their site!
after creating this pillow set, i've also started to envision what the types of friend gifts there might be for christmas 2015. i guess we'll have to wait and see if this stays as the inspiration, or something else happens, right?  either way, i am totally going to keep peeking in on the swap angel board.  as much as i love receiving things from other people, i just don't have anywhere to put anything right now!  but seriously, i'm sure i'll keep doing regular swaps as well.  and drooling over the awesome up! mini quilt from the disney swap that i missed out on.
it's pretty much fantastic.