Mom's Art Bird

I tell my students all the time, "Don't buy fabrics you fall in love with UNLESS you have a definite plan to cut it up and use it in a quilt."

Great advice. But we all do it. I bought a lot of J. Wecker Frisch's fabrics and while I have used bits of them very judiciously, I still have an awful lot of it.

As my Mother spent a lot of her career as a professional artist, it was clear that I had to make an Art Bird to represent her in her quilt. I was able to cut into my J. Wecker Frisch fabrics and put together what I think is a nifty bird that represents my Mom.

Can you say "fussy cuts galore?"

If you want to make birds, you can get my tutorial that tells you how. It's on my Etsy shop, here.

The HOW and the WHY of Fabric Choices

 I am opinionated. I believe that all other things being equal, fabric selection determines the success or failure of a quilt. 

There are lots of ways to make something look good. There isn't only one right answer. The right answer depends on what YOU want.

Having said that, I really want to make sure the quilts that I make or even simply the birds that I make are as great as they can be. And believe me, sometimes even I have to do it over to get it really right.

To wit:

I used this fun fabric on the back of the PRIZM quilt, and I thought it would be fun in a bird for my Mom's bird quilt because my mom loves FUN and a good joke. So I cut a big triangle and searched through my stash for breast and beak fabrics.

I was probably thinking with only half my brain. The wrong half. I thought the orange would sort of echo the patterns on the cats in the print. And the green would echo the green cats. But seriously, there is nothing to connect the three fabrics together, and compared to the fun cats, the orange and green are pretty boring and don't bring anything to the party. (Also, and more importantly, they don't share any OTHER colors with the fun print, and there's nothing connecting the wing fabric to the breast fabric to the beak fabric.)

Another issue was the pattern of the cats wasn't really being taken advantage of in the best way. 

BACK TO THE CUTTING TABLE....

Fiddling around a little bit (Can you say FUSSY CUT?) I found this fun green guy, and then it was OBVIOUS I had to use some fun green fabric for the bird breast.

And, OH! Look what I found for the beak! These colors repeat the colors that surround the silly green cat!

This is SO MUCH BETTER! And when I found that strip of bird legs with the colored blocks, I knew I had a winner. Silly and fun, here we come!

But you know, sometimes one idea generates another one, and you know me... gotta follow that!

So here are more silly cat-like animals having fun. The breast fabric here is leftover blue fabric from the backing of the Blue Ribbons quilt I just finished. The legs are gray, and they seemed to fit perfectly.

But check out that beak fabric! Yes, those colors are in the funny animal print too....

See anything familiar?

When I say look at your fabric for what it CAN BE instead of just WHAT IT IS, I am not joking.

Here are the two fabrics next to each other, so you can see how much they have in common. This kind of similarity is something you have to be on the lookout for.

You too can make birds: Get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop.

More Birds

 I've made a couple more birds for my Mom's bird quilt. Here is a green one. I have made myself a promise that these birds will come from the fabrics in my scrap bins.

Not that that limits me in any way!

These two do not represent anybody in my family. I made them because I liked the wing fabrics.

As usual, these have given me some ideas, and I am going to make a few more. Oh gee, where have you heard that before? Making birds is fun and rather addictive!

You can make birds too! Go here to get my tutorial at my Etsy shop!

Niece & More Birds

 

This is my Niece's bird. I made this bird back in July, and I am showing it to you again because I am making birds based on family members for a bird quilt I am making for my mother. My niece has a partner and I wanted to show you his bird too.

When I met him last year, I found out he loved maps, so I used a fabric that reminded me of the topological lines on maps as the wing fabric. My niece send me a photograph of the two of them taken when they were hiking. They both looked so happy and bright I decided to use bright colors for this bird's breast.

They have a black dog, Nona, and she has a bit of white on her chest. This is Nona.

If you too want to make birds based on family members, friends, or anything you see, you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop.

More Family Birds

 

I've been moving along with making birds based on my family members for my Mom's bird quilt. This is my nephew. You can see the quilt I made for him when he graduated from high school, here. (Lightning in the Night Sky. ) It's about halfway down. You can see other pictures here, when I gave it to him. His reaction was priceless.

This is the bird I made that represents his wife.

More birds to come!

If you want to make your own birds, you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop.

Another Bird

I've made another bird for my mother's bird quilt. I had had a pile of blacks with bright colors on my worktable and told myself I had to make a bird from the fabrics that were on the table.

You too can make birds. Get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop, to get started.
 

Blue Ribbon Quilt Finished

I've been sewing the binding on the Blue Ribbon quilt.

I have been putting quilts on a card table while I sew the binding. It keeps them straight and it's easier to have everything handy while I work.
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I have to take it out for beauty shots, but this gives you an idea of what it looks like.

I always meant for this quilt to be used as a table quilt. I found that blue and white bowl at a local thrift shop.

I've put the Needle in a Haystack quilt on the couch along with the two new blue and white pillows, so two quilts relate to each other.

Blue Macnas Flimsy Done

 

I've sewn the Blue Macnas flimsy together. 

After I sewed all the blocks into rows, and then chunks, I added the white border.

Here it is on the design wall. The quilt will have a blue binding.

Green Deco Done!

 

I finished the Green Deco quilt and took it out for Beaty shots. This is my favorite. 

It's so gorgeous this weekend, I have to enjoy the lovely weather while it lasts.

I've been sewing the Blue Macnas quilt together and working outside to put the garden to bed. Inside I've been doing some cleaning and reorganizing of some areas that have been a bit neglected.

I've also been sewing the binding of the Green Birds quilt.

I have lots of student birds to show you from my trip to New York, but I've been busy settling back in, and it seems to have taken me a bit longer to get my groove back.

If you want to make your own birds, you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop. It's an instant download, so you can get started right away.

All Over the Place

I'm still wrestling with Sciatica in my hip and while that's getting better, if I sit too long it's really painful, so I do small amounts of each task and then stand up and walk a bit.

I've been doing a bit of this and a bit of that. I've sewn the blocks in the leftmost column above. 

I've been cutting up the neutrals I bought in New York into Macnas blocks and the side triangles for the Scrap Slab Triangle quilts.

I've also been sewing the binding on the Green Deco quilt.

That's just the sewing. I also made a beef stew and homemade bread this weekend. And I watched the new Masterpiece Theatre shows, Gold, and Maigret. And I finished one book and started another.

I'm BACK!

 

I'm BACK!  Last weekend I drove out to Clifton Park NY. (I took the 3 hour 31 minute route. It wound through the mountains in Vermont and was very scenic. I did not want to travel on the Mass Pike and 495 (the dark blue route.)

I gave a trunk show on Finding Inspiration and taught a workshop to the Quilt North group in Clifton Park. As you can see we had a grand time.

Speaking of Inspiration, my contact at the guild, Laura, were coming out of a shop and across the parking lot was this building. I took one look at it and stopped to take a picture. "This would make a terrific quilt! Look at those colors and those shapes," I exclaimed. "Gonna store that away for later." Laura stopped beside me. "Yeah, you're right. What do you do with the pictures you take?" I told her I put them in a folder or album on my phone called "Inspiration," so when I need ideas I can find them all in one place.

I'll show. you more of the birds the group made later, but right now I'm just so happy to be home and have all the quilts back where they belong.

I brought 23 quilts. That's a lot. This hotel rack came in super handy when it was time to move them all around.

I got home, emptied the car and the suitcase. I put the dirty clothes in the washing machine, and then unpacked my quilts. Since I store them in my closet, I fold them lengthwise after the trunk show. Makes it so much easier to put them away again. 

This makes me happy!

I put all the quilts back on the walls where they belonged. I love the Quick Brown Fox quilt so much!

I visited a quilt shop and bought some low key fabrics. These will be Lights in either Macnas or Scrap Slab Triangle quilts in the future. I've since run them through the washing machine and now I have to iron them.

I had a great time, and I'm glad to be back home in my own house and my own bed!

If you want to make your own birds, you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy Shop. It's an instant download so you can get started right away!

Binding Green Deco

 I've finished binge watching the entire six seasons of Downton Abbey, and I've rewatched the first two movies. I've seen the last movie, The Grand Finale, so I am officially done. Sewing binding on a quilt is a great thing to do while I "watch" anything. I've got quite a lot of binding in my future and it's good to have a list of stuff I want to catch up on while I do it.

Assembling the Blue Macnas

 

When I have a long row of blocks to sew together, I break it up into smaller chunks. 

I've been sewing the Blue Macnas quilt together and you can see what I have sewn together at the left.

It's pretty funny. I've already chosen the border for this quilt (the white) and the binding (the blue.) I don;t usually do that before I have completely assembled the top.

And I've even chosen and ordered the backing for it! 

This is going to be a table quilt, and I'll put it on the table when I have the Needle in a Haystack quilt on the couch. I guess this means I am going to have to get some blue pillows....

oh my!

Binding the Green Deco Quilt

 

I added the binding to the Green Deco quilt.

Then I folded it over to the front and pinned it in place. I'll be hand sewing it down in the days ahead.