Mom's Bird Quilt, Quilted

 

I picked up my Mom's bird quilt from Janet-Lee. Here is a closeup shot of the quilting. 

Here's another picture. I really love the quilting.

I've added the binding to the quilt, and will be finishing it over the next few days.

My mother is going to be very happy with this.

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

The Last Birds?

I made a few more birds for my Mom's quilt. These don't represent any person or idea. They are just birds based on fabrics that I liked and thought they were fun. 

This one has Laurel Burch fabrics. way back when, my Mom and I both had Laurel Burch jewelry.

The wing fabric on this bird was fabric I used in the backing of the Harlequin Scrap Slab Triangle quilt. I added some black on white fabric for the bird's breast, but something niggled at my memory. Turns out I used the same fabric combination in a bird with a green background, and it is in the Green Birds quilt. I made this bird facing in the opposite direction and I made sure the beak was a different color.

This reminded me that very often I would go shopping and later show my mom my purchase and she would say, "Oh, that's gorgeous! Can you get one like it for me?"

The wing fabric in this bird was fabric I included in the Needle in a Haystack quilt. The legs are fabric that shows a lot of drawing and drafting pencils, because my Mom and I both specialized in pencil drawings.

I've had the wing fabric for this bird for well over ten years, probably more. I liked the Art Deco feel of it, but haven't used it in many quilts. It seemed perfect for a bird.

I don't usually buy Fat Quarter packs, but the wing of this bird was part of a pack of Jane Sassaman fabrics. Both of the other fabrics are batiks, and were already in my stash.

These are all the birds. There are 43 of them. These are not arranged in any particular order, That will come next. 

You too, can make birds. They are an awful lot of fun. You can get my tutorial here, 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.

Green In and Green Out

 

This is the only "green" bird I made yesterday.

I've been rearranging the birds on the design wall and trying to figure out how they will be arranged and what I will use to fill up all those blank spaces. When I am not sure, I set that aside and go do something else.

Tomorrow I shall be receiving some Salvia Amistad plants to fill these pots. They are purple and hummingbirds (and other pollinators) love them. They grow to be almost four feet tall and are really pretty. I've got these three pots ready and waiting. Those are Wave Petunias filling in around the bottom. I will put these in different places so I can see them from different spots in the house.

I've got another plant collection coming, and I've got a big pot ready for that too, but there's no point in showing an empty pot!

Julie inspired me to get a pot of Gerber daisies. I've decided that if I am going to grow flowers, I am going to plant some that I can cut and enjoy inside my house.

In the shade garden on the north side of my house, the hostas are getting ready to explode. This one is enormous, and I need to divide it, but it won't be happening this year.

Long-Arming

 

My Mom's boyfriend is a retired Electrical Engineer. He is interested in the quilts that I make and was very curious about the long arm quilting machine that quilts them So I brought he and my Mom with me when I brought a quilt to Janet-Lee for quilting. Here they are watching one of the machines at work.

Janet-Lee asked me if we'd like to watch her set up one of my quilts on her machine to see the whole process. Of course I said yes. In the photo above, the backing of my Carnelian quilt has been set up.

Janet-Lee patiently explained every step of the process as she set up the quilt on her machine, wound the bobbins and threaded the machine.

Janet-Lee said once again how my quilts are a pleasure to work with because they are flat and square, the seams on the back are pressed flat and there are no threads popping through the seams on the front. Apparently that is rather rare. "Sometimes I'll put one of Lynne's quilts on the machines when I can't take it anymore," she said to my Mom. 

She explained how she set up the design and told the machine where to start and stop. Naturally there is a lot more than that, which I can't remember, but it was fascinating. Mike was very interested in the mechanics of it, the tension of the thread and what was happening underneath. JL explained it all.

I could have stood there and watched the machine work all day long.

Here's the newest green bird (or bird on a green background). I use a leftover piece from the backing of the Harlequin quilt for the wing. I am also having great fun making white birds. I think I might make a stork or an egret with long legs.  

Hmmm...

More More Birds on Green

 Nobody ever believes me when I tell them making birds can be addictive. Here are three more birds on green backgrounds and I am playing with different greens as the backgrounds.

.

Here's the second one.

Here is the third.

I went to a quilt show yesterday and saw what is quite possibly the best T-Shirt ever. The design was made from rhinestones that glittered.

Made my day it did!

If you want to make birds (and you really do), you can get my tutorial here at my Etsy shop. It'tars an instant download, so you can get started right away.

Yakkety Yak, Finished!

The Yakkety Yak quilt is all finished. Here it is, hanging over the top edge of my cubicle at work, but more on that in a bit.

I've been binge watching all the past seasons of Top Chef. I watched them all while they were happening, and it's amazing what I forgot. I'm up to Season 11 now. And yes, I am watching the new episodes of Season 21 as they are shown. So while I have been sewing the binding of the last few quilts, it's been Top Chef all the time.

And Cherie, I am sorry! Your brain wasn't sleep addled. In yesterday's post, I did indeed refer to the binding mistakenly as "backing." It's fixed now, but you were not wrong. That's what I get when I try to post too close to my bedtime.

I brought the quilt to work to show my colleagues and the CEO suggested I display it for everyone to see. 

Not going to refuse that. I wrote a note and taped it up so folks could read, since I was on the other side of that wall and couldn't tell if anybody was there.

It's a good sized quilt, and it will surely live on my bed, at least for a bit.

You too can make birds! Get my tutorial here. It's an instant download so you can get started right away!

 

Yakkety Yak, squared up

I added extra fabric to the sides of the Yakkety Yak quilt to square it up. I have a tiny bit of tinkering to this and it will be ready to send it to be quilted.

 

Let It Go!

 

Sometimes you're so busy you forget to really look at the things right in front of you. This is "Life is Tweet," my attempt at a row quilt I made almost ten years ago. It lives in my master bathroom and I walk past it several times a day. I sometimes forget it's there. What a shame!

It has my fun liberated birds (tutorial here), my butterflies, (tutorial here), and my asterisk flowers (tutorial here), and some wonky hearts.

I meant to have all the elements lined up in a row, but the birds refused to cooperate. The hearts seemed to bounce around with love and excitement, and just couldn't be contained. The butterflies wanted to fly (duh), and the asterisks simply lifted up into the air above.

Well.

What was I to do? I let them, because sometimes that's the way an idea works. You have a plan and what happens on the design wall changes and you have to change with it. Had I made the quilt I had originally intended to make, this quilt would have been boring and stuffy.

The quilt is enhanced with Chris Ballard's spectacular free motion hand guided quilting. It's a smallish quilt, 38" x 45". Just goes to show you can get a lot of bang for your buck out of 29 blocks.

I tell my students all the time that at some point the quilt they are making is going to start making demands. "What the quilt wants," I tell them, "the quilt should get." 

I have a lot of non-quilt related stuff going on and since I haven't been in the studio for a few days, I thought you'd enjoy this little blast from the past.

Yakkety Yak - the flimsy!

 Putting this quilt together has been really challenging. Every seam requires a lot of thought, and sometimes it changes that I thought I was going to do. Like this bird with the really long legs, above. I -thought- I knew just what I was going to do, but it didn't seem to work.

I ended up chopping them off and adding two tiny birds in their place.

There are only three set in squares in the quilt, but there where I lot of places where there were "T" seams  where things got added to something else.

I have to straighten out the sides, but I worked all day on this on Sunday and I was just wiped out. It's about 66" x 80".

Naturally, things got moved around in order to sew it up. I didn't take any birds apart, but I did remove a lot of the strips above the bird heads several times. Several birds got shorter (legs got trimmed) and one bird got a smaller beak. The littlest birds are 3" tall (excuse me, short).

You too can make birds like these using my tutorial available at my Etsy shop, here. They are a lot of fun.

Feeling Better!

 

It’s hard to believe it’s December already. I’ve put the Christmas table quilt on the table, and got out my other Holiday quilts for display as well.

I’ve made a few more little birds and this one is the littlest. Compared to a normal sized bird, this guy is really little. I think he’s cute.

I have just stuffed the little birds in spaces where they fit, but before I’m done I’ll move them all around. You can get an idea of what’s going on here.

I’m feeling quite a bit better. I’m not taking any more cold medicine and that’s a big plus, but I’m still getting to bed about 9 PM, so I’m not really doing a whole heck of a lot. My Mom’s got it though. She’s been for X-rays and she’s on antibiotics. She’s 89 and told me this morning she’s pissed. She said she isn’t ready to be “Saint Mom” any time soon. Any positive vibes you can send her way would be most appreciated.

Hey, if you want to make birds, you can! It’s a lot of fun and my tutorial tells you everything you need to know. Click on the blue bird in the sidebar, and it will take you to my Etsy shop!