Spare a Square Scrap Challenge Complete

I finally finished my "Spare a Square Scrap Challenge" that I signed up for over at JC Handmade. I had to make "something" using these scraps of fabric.

I have to tell you I was really stumped, and had a hard time with this. Being that the pieces were all differnt sizes and patterns and colors, my mind was swirling. I had houses on the brain, due to my participation in another quilt along, so here is what I came up with...
To me Home is where you feel comfortable. You are filled with things you love and everything doesn't have to match. Your neighborhood is flled with a variety of different people, whoes personalities meld together to make a place feel like home. That is what inspired me to make this pillow out of the fabrics that seemingly didn't go together. They were all fabrics that somoeone loved and were a part of that person.
I think they made a perfect neighborhood and Home!
I raw edge appliqued the houses on the pillow to add to the imperfect design. Because real HOMES are like that. Only brand new, unlived in show houses are perfect and don't have any cosmetic blemishes, places where the paint needs touched up, a lawn that needs mowed, a bike left outside, a roof needing attention, etc... and I wanted my homes and neighborhood to reflect that. This project also gave me an opportunity to try free motion quilting on my new sewing machine. The front quilting is a little too "busy", but for a first shot, I think it is ok. The back was actually just a piece I was practicing on, and I kind of liked all the different designs that I was trying, and ended up cutting it up and using it as the back for the pillow.
I think the pillow turned out quite cute. I you want to see more pictures, or pictures of what others came up with (some are really amazing!), go to this Flickr Group.