The Teenager

 As I was making the little birds I realized that all my "kids" were small. But not all children are smaller than their parents. Sometimes the kids get taller than their parents. Especially teenagers, who tend to shoot up quickly. They are often gawky and awkward, so that was my inspiration for this guy:

I make this guy taller with a narrow tummy, long legs and I gave him a tiny beak, because...

The Mom is pretty sure of herself, and certainly not a shrinking violet.

The Bird Family Grows

 

I decided that I wanted to make the little birds look like they were related to the bigger birds so I decided to make some little birds based on the bigger ones.

Here's another one.

Here is a big bird with two smaller birds. Maybe they are brother and sister?

Another pair.

This smaller bird has GOT to be a teenager. Look at the big beak on that one! Talkative for sure!

I have plans for about ten more.

You too can make birds like these. They are not made with traditional patterns or templates and they are most definitely NOT PAPER PIECED. You can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop, to learn how to make them.

The Big Bird

This big bird I plan to use in my classes has been quilted, and I think it's terrific.

 Here's the back. I loved this color chart of fabrics.

I used the same fabric as in the wing of the bird for the hanging sleeve on the back.

I'm going to use this pinkish batik that has been in my stash for ages as the binding.

The big bird block is 24" tall by 26" wide.

The talk at the Monadnock Quilter's Guild last night went very well. Before the talk I walked around the town. This building housed a yoga studio. I thought the mural was gorgeous.



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.

Do The Egyptian...

My newest bird was inspired by the Egyptian-themed fabric on the wing. The rest of the fabrics were obvious selections. I made the bird because I liked the fabrics. I don't know where or if this bird will fit in my New Hampshire quilt, but hey, that's never stopped me before.

We're supposed to have a big snowstorm this weekend, and I'll be inside sewing and rooting for the team Millie calls "the guys named Pat." They are, of course, led by a guy named Tom, who is also a GOAT. I haven't decided if I am going to make a bird based on him though.

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

Back Back...

It's getting there...

I bet you thought this was going to be easy.

Nope. Although I want the signature panel to be at the lower edge of the quilt, I don't want it to be under the barn block, so I had to do some calculations to work out where to place it on the back.  The hard part is done though. Tomorrow I'll just sew a WOF (width of fabric) piece to either side of this center panel and I will be finished.

I'll be able to show the quilt to my students on Saturday and then I'll bring it to the longarm quilter on Sunday. I am hoping to have it back to show the Barn Building class at QT on the 28th (also full.) Then I'll add the binding (still to be determined), take beauty shots (because my brother sure won't), show it off to my family on Thanksgiving and then mail it to Colorado.

Time to start thinking of the next quilt!





Hey, Sue of the Monarch Quilter's Guild.... email me! The address is in the sidebar!

Options, Options...

I'm almost done the signature panel for the Colorado Quilt.

This one isn't right. The dark numbers make it too visually heavy on the right.

Too top heavy.

This is good. Doesn't take up too much space on the back of the quilt.

This is nice, almost the same as in the first bird quilt, Flight of Fancy, but I don't want it to take up so much space on the back of the quilt.

I have decided on the third one.





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

Signature Letters

I really want to get the Colorado Quilt quilted, so I am working on the signature panel for the back. I have made the letters of my name, and now I have to make the year - 2017. Then I will trim it all down to size and sew them together into a panel, then I'll assemble the backing.



If you'd like to make your own free pieced birds, click this link to my Etsy shop. The bird tutorial is an instant download so you can get started right away!

Bird Signature

I've got a lot of stressful things going on. Nothing major, but there are a lot of smaller things that together are making me crazy. The only thing that helps is to get into the studio and work, so I did. This bird will be on the signature panel on the back of the Colorado Quilt.

Here is the bird on the fabric I have chosen for the backing. The bird is low-key because I don't want a jumpy crazy bird on the back. P & J are quiet people, and I don't want it to be too much.

What, Huh?

When it comes time to lay out the elements on one of my quilts, I long ago learned an important lesson.  That is, that quilts are demanding and I should always give a quilt what it wants.

Like all the quilts I make, this quilt wanted a little something special. In the Flight of Fancy quilt, it was the pair of upside down birds.

An upside down bird didn't fit in the Colorado quilt, and believe me, I tried.

 This bird represented a barn, which in turn represented one of the many dozens of ranches in the area where P & J live.

 Each ranch had more than one barn, and they all seemed to be red.

This bird represents Andrew, a farmer from whom P & J buy hay for their animals. I met Andrew at the local Verizon store when he brought his cell phone in for some repairs. Andrew had his son with him.

When I was laying out the birds for the Colorado Quilt, I tried to make them look like they were having conversations in small groups. It seemed to make sense to have Andrew speaking to other ranchers. So Andrew faced the red barn, but it didn't seem to be enough.

 
Remembering Andrew's son, I made a smaller red barn to represent him, but later I realized I had got it wrong.

Except that I had really got it right. Andrew sold hay and did other work for the ranchers, and I had, with the addition of the second smaller bird, quite serendipitously, represented more than one ranch.

AND I had given the quilt just that little something extra, that made you look twice and think... hey, what's that all about?

.

The Colorado Quilt Flimsy is Complete!

I finished sewing the bird blocks together and finished the Colorado Quilt flimsy.

It's about 78" x 87" or so. I'm really happy the way it turned out.  There are 53 birds, one butterfly, seven flowers and one amazing barn.



I needed one final bird for the Colorado quilt. I wanted a darkish bird, so I looked through my photos until I found just the right one.

I took a picture of this older barn on a day the sky was hazy because of the smoke from a forest fire in Utah.

This is the bird I made based on the dark brown barn.

Birds on the Barn

These birds are sewn to the barn block.

I've set the row of birds that go above the barn so I can check it out before I sew it together.

The quilt is wider than my design wall, so I have to lay it out on the floor.

 I take a lot of pictures so I can figure out what I want it to look like. I don't like the placement of the top three on the right. I don't like the way they look like they are directly above the ones on the row below.

I slid the row to the left, and liked the way it looked, so I sewed it down.

 So how do I get them all to look the way they do? I set the blocks next to a long straightedge.

 This helps me to see how much extra fabric I need to add to each block. The blue flower needs extra fabric sewn on all four sides, but the red bird only needs it added to the bottom.

The green bird on the left needs strips added to the top and bottom, the blue one on the end needs it just on the top.

Once I add the strips wherever it has to go, I straighten up the edges, then sew the blocks together. Then I get to check and double check the row is the same height from one end to the other. This is fussy, but definitely worth it. Once that's done, I can sew the row to the rest of the quilt.

And so on and so on and so on. Or maybe I should say, "and sew on, and sew on and sew on."

(you all know how much I love a good pun.)

One, Two, Three Things

I am continuing to work on sewing the Colorado Quilt flimsy together. It's slow going, and I'll show you more tomorrow, but I have some other things to show you first.

I needed another bird.  This was based on the control tower of the Denver Airport. Yeah, I know the bird is green and the tower is more blue-green, but I needed a green bird, so I changed the color.

Yeah, really. The day we left my Mom and I had lunch at a restaurant where we could see the tower. I looked and looked and couldn't decide if I should take a picture or not. Finally I decided that if I couldn't make up my mind, that was a good indication that I should do it. It was only ONE picture, after all, so I took it.  Good advice if you can't decide something is inspirational or not. If you're not sure, take the picture anyway. You can always delete it later if it turns out to be a dud.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Now I have a story for you.  You might enjoy it as much as I did.

I woke up this morning and saw this comment on yesterday's post.

I told my brother about it. "Yeah, the president of the Monarch Quilt Guild saw your business cards at Hodgepodge [in Salida CO] and freaked out that you were there. She has been following you for years. Wanted to know why you were in Salida and was hoping she hadn't missed a workshop.... You should hear Sandi tell the story. It's pretty funny."

This is Sandi, owner of the Hodgepodge in Salida CO.

So me being me, I called Sandi. Apparently Sue visited the Hodgepodge the day after I was there in June. She told Sandi she'd been following my blog for years. "Well have you ever commented?" Sandi asked. "Have you ever emailed Lynne?"  No and no. "Well you should! She's very nice and very approachable."

After I posted birds I had made based on the photo of Sandi (above) and staff member Amber last week, Sue visited Hodgepodge again, "You're in the quilt Lynne is making for her brother" she told Sandi. Did you see her blog? You're on it!!!

This is all just too cool for words. So many days I write these posts and I never know how far my words will go and how many people they affect.

Then Sue left her comment on yesterday's post, asking me to present a seminar on birds when I brought the quilt to P & J. Well, I was planning to ship the quilt to Colorado, not present it in person, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't like to visit again.

So here's the thing. I have family in Colorado. I have family in Los Angeles. I have family in Southern Maryland. I travel to visit my family. In the last 24 months I've been to LA three times, and to Maryland and Colorado once each. I'm likely to visit all three again in the next 24 months. If you want me to teach a seminar to your quilt group and you live in those areas, let me know. I'd be happy to work something out, and combine a workshop with a family trip.

If you live outside those areas and want me to do a workshop for your group or guild and are willing to pay the costs for my travel, meals and lodging, then give me a shout. I love to visit new places too. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Lastly, I visited Quilted Threads to drop off the Fruit Loops quilt and some other class materials for a Scrap Slabs class I'll be teaching there on Saturday November 11. While I was there I looked around for possible backing fabrics for the Colorado Quilt. 

 Nope.

These aren't bad, but they aren't great. "Meh!" 

 This is pretty, but it's boring.

YEAH! Now we're talking! Nine yards of this came home with me.

PS, I added a page to this blog with photos of all the Slashed Squares quilts I ever made, so you can see them all in one place.  Check out the link in the pages section at the top.

All Lined Up!

I wanted to line up all the chicken birds in a row at the very bottom of the Colorado quilt, underneath the big barn block. I made all the chickens with grey legs and red beaks. I wanted there to be a big boss chicken facing the rest of them. "They don't call it the pecking order for nothing," my brother told me when I asked him if there was one chicken who ruled the roost.

Here you can see the row of chickens at the bottom, and the big chicken to the far right.

 Everybody always asks how big the finished bird blocks are, but since the size of the bird can vary, so can the size of the block. Besides, I usually have to add fabric to make the block fit where I want it to go. The more important thing, however, is that the block is SQUARE and the edges are STRAIGHT. This ensures the flimsy lies flat.

When you have a really big block though, it can be tough to get it right.  

As you can see it takes some really big rulers to do this.

Now you know why I always make things BIGGER. (Please notice the long blue straightedge, the long metal triangle and the two plastic 90 degree triangles that help me get this thing SQUARE.)

 When it comes to sewing a seam this long, I use pins, and lots of them. It's too easy for a long edge to get a bit distorted.

 This is what is sewn together.

This is what will go on that top edge of the barn block.