The Fabric Makes the Misfit

 When I had the idea in my head to make misfit birds, I had to think what constituted a "misfit." How could I convey, using fabric alone, that this bird was a "misfit" while following the basic brief for this quilt   - that all the birds would be PINK?

This is, in a nutshell, what I "do." I use my fabrics to get the message across. Wanda has said "You use your fabrics to do the heavy lifting in your quilts." That's exactly it. I believe that, all things being equal, fabric selection determines the success or failure of a quilt, and that you really should make your fabric work FOR YOU, because, like, duh, isn't that what it's for?

For the misfits, I wanted fabrics that would be sorta pink, or have a lot of pink in them, but wouldn't be the   things you normally associated with "pink." To get to the fabrics I had to figure out what a misfit was. What do "misfit" teenagers look like? They wear a lot of black, they may have tattoos. They may dress sloppily, or wear mismatched clothes. They may wear clothes with subversive images or ideas.

I thought this pink fabric with the spiderwebs would make the viewer think not only about spiders and spiderwebs (yuk!), but would also suggest tattoos. OK, so now we have the basic part of the bird. But now we need the rest.

I tried different fabrics, but nothing really supported the spiderweb. But then I did this and I thought, I like the colors and the swirls.. AND THEN I HAD A BRAINSTORM!

What if I SWITCHED the two fabrics? Made the swirly fabric the wing and the spiderweb fabric the body?

And then I saw this fabric scrap!!! OH HOLY HELL YES!

Then I figure out how to make the spiderweb fabric work best in the shape of the bird breast and body.

Audition beak fabric, determine placement and shape...

Add some funky legs, (because hello, misfit bird) and Voila!

Remember, YOU know this is a misfit bird because you have watched me create it. YOU know the story about the families of birds, the siblings, the whole concept. But when I show the finished quilt, nobody will know any of that. Viewers will only figure it out as they look carefully at all the birds. They will put it together, because I have left a lot of clues.

AND, because I chose my fabrics carefully, and used them to their best advantage. I remember someone told me once "You have the best fabrics." I said "Maybe, maybe not. But I know how to get the best out of the fabrics I do have. That's more important."

You can get my tutorial about making birds here, at my Etsy shop. They don't use traditional patterns or templates and they are NOT paper-pieced.