Mom & Poppies

One evening, while my Mom and I waited for our dinner in Colorado, P & J brought us some poppies from their garden.

 
The poppies themselves were gorgeous, but the picture they made with my Mom was even better.  Why? Orange is the compliment of Blue. What that means is blue and orange lie opposite each other on the color wheel. Orange is made up of Red and Yellow - the other primary colors that are NOT Blue. Compliment pairs make visually exciting color combinations, and since the blue here is a pale blue, the combination is more relaxing and more pleasing.

I took a picture right away, and it turned out to be one of the best ones of the whole trip. I knew it would have to be interpreted into a bird.

 Searching through my stash for just the right orange and just the right blue, I found this large print I bought several years ago. It's pretty clear this is the right fabric for a bird based on the photo of my Mom and the poppies, but how to decide what part to use?

Try them out, of course! Taking photos and then comparing them side by side helped me figure out which one looked best.

I used the blue of my Mom's sweatshirt in the beak of the bird.  As for the striped legs... well, I had made so many dark legs for birds for this quilt, I felt it was time for a little fun. For this bird, I think it is well suited, and this bird seemed to need LONG legs! I'm really happy with it.



If you would like to make some of these free pieced birds, go to my Etsy shop and buy my tutorial. It explains everything you need to know to make your own birds.*


*One of the reviews of the tute made me laugh: