The Magic of a Set In Square

 

This is the top of the first student bird quilt, with the birds arranged more or less the way I want them to look. I don't like them stacked on on top of the other, or with too many darks or lights together. And I like it when they seem to talk to each other and interact. 

It's a tricky thing. I have to add fabric to the bird blocks. Sometimes at the top, sometimes the bottom, sometimes the sides. I never cut a bird apart, but I might make the legs a bit shorter, or trim the block across the top. SOMETIMES I need a set in square.

If you enlarge and look carefully at the top picture, there is an empty space below the little hummingbird. In the second photo, I have added fabrics to several of the blocks and sewn them together. You can pretty much see how they are going to fit together.

I have added a small rectangle of fabric underneath the hummingbird, but I didn't sew the seam all the way across. I left it a little bit open, because I'll need to sew the bird on the far right to it. I'll trim it down to size when I am ready to sew it to the panel that will go below it.

The next step is to sew the horizontal seam connecting the two panels above. (You can see I adjusted the piece of fabric under the hummingbird.)

Now I'll sew the lone bird on the right to the large panel. Part of this seam is the edge of the set in square.

The last thing is to sew that last seam together.                

Here you can see the small set in rectangle just above the bird's head.

So here is that top third joined together. It isn't all finished. (The little orange bird on the right hasn't been sewn to the rest yet. I haven't quite decided how I'm going to do that.)

 

 

You too, can make birds. You can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop. Now, bear in mind that my tutorial is for a basic bird. The birds in the photos above were make by students/customers, and they have added their own unique customizations, but you can do that too.