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 - 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.

Bits & Bobs

 

It's one step at a time, one section at a time, putting the Yakkety Yak quilt together. It's a lot of brain work, and every single seam is a big decision, so it's slow going. Here are the latest "chunks" or "panels" that I have sewn together.

And this bird...

.. got a rhinoplasty, and feels much better about herself.

It is definitely silly sewing.

True fact: there is actually a bird in this quilt that is its own set-in square. 

The Littlest Kids

 I told you all that the layout of the Yakkety Yak quilt was going to change as I put the blocks together. In the original design I have bird blocks overlapping each other, and I can't sew them together that way. In real life, the blocks are farther apart to account for this. 

And then while I'm putting things together, I see opportunities. Like this one:

When I arrange birds like this - beak to beak - I think of them as kissing. THESE two.. This is a single Mom who is REALLY hot for this good looking guy she is chatting with. The only problem is the empty space is really big. I really hate big empty spaces.

So I created a really little bird and put him really close to his mother. He is behaving like the normal little kid, totally blocking his Mom. Can you hear him saying "Mommy, potty! Mommy! Potty! MOMMMMMY"

I had so much fun with this concept, that I reviewed my layout and made SIX more little birds.

.

.

.

.

.

I know it's hard to see that these birds are small, so let's take a look:

I gave the little birds longish legs because I can always trim them down if needed.

The Set-In Square

 When assembling blocks that are not in regular rows, sometimes you have to use a set-in square. It means Y seams. Sort of. I hate sewing into a corner, but when I insert a set-in square, I'm not sewing INTO a corner, I'm sewing OUT of one. I will show you how I do it.

The set in square in this example will fit underneath the middle bird in the top row.

First I had to sew the birds surrounding it together. I had to sew the two pink birds in the upper right together, and I had to make sure they had enough fabric above their heads so when the whole thing was complete, there was enough fabric there. I had to do the same thing to the birds on the lower left. I had to join them together, and make sure they had enough additional fabric on the bottom and left sides. 

Most importantly (read: MOST IMPORTANTLY) the resulting panels had to be SQUARE, which means all the sides were trimmed perfectly STRAIGHT and each corner was 90 degrees.

You can start anywhere, but I decided to sew the set in square (the heavily printed WOW above) to the left edge of the bird panel at the upper right. Note that I did not sew that seam all the way across. I stopped short about an inch. I pressed the seam.

The next thing was to sew it to the bird panel to the left of it - the one with the big bird and the little teeny bird. I'll sew the two panels together, from one edge to the other.

Like this. Next I will sew it to the bird panel (when I have more than one block sewn together I call that a "panel") below it.

See?

The next step is to sew the big bird on the right to it.

Here I have folded to top panel down, and over to the left so I can properly line up the edges. Because I didn't sew the Set In Square fabric all the way to the edge, I have room for my seam allowance and room to sew.

The last step is to fold the top panel down, line up the edges and sew the last seam across.

TA-DA!

This is what I have sewn together so far.

And this is what's left to do.

You too can make birds. I explain how in my tutorial, sold here on my Etsy shop. Fair warning: making birds is addictive.

Nuts & Bolts

 

I am pretty sure this is the final layout. Now, when I actually sew these birds together, I will have to do some tinkering. I may shorten some bird legs, I may reduce the space between them, but I won't alter a bird. Getting these where they are required a lot of up and down on the ladder.

I sneezed.  Oops.

Fortunately I had taken and printed a photograph.

Then, to make sure I didn't do it again, I stuck the birds to the design wall with pins. This is going to take some time.

There will be set in squares, but I don't know yet exactly where they may be. this (above) is one of three attempts to work out how I will sew these together. I don't need to know how I will sew it all together before I start. I just need to know where I am going next.

This is the panel that goes in the upper right.

This panel goes in the upper left. 

I always knew I wanted the little bird to be directly underneath a bigger bird. To make that happen, I inserted  the little bird in part of the leg panel of a larger bird.

Putting 75 or so birds of different sizes together in one quilt where they aren't lined up in rows is fussy and tricky, but not really HARD. It just takes time, patience and care. It also takes a willingness to take chances and not settle for anything that isn't right.

Talk to Me!

 

It was time to get off the pot. I cleared the design wall and started to arrange the pink birds as if they were talking to each other. This was the first pass.

After tinkering for a bit, I had this. YES, I know it is fuzzy, but what am I going to do? I've changed it already, so I can't go back  You probably noticed the green bird in the upper left corner. He won't stay. I needed something big in that corner, and a tall bird was it. The only tall bird I had was a green one.

THIS will be a bird that will replace that green one.

Here is the new bird.

I am not going to fuss with this. My best pal Julie has helped me figure out that I make my best quilts when I don't think too much about them, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time rearranging the birds. I like the way they look so I'm going to start sewing this together.

And I have a name for this quilt. "Yakkety Yak,"

I am excited!

The Five Hundredth

 OH BOY!

Somebody asked to see the 500th bird. I haven't even made it yet. That got me to thinking... OMG! I've made 499 birds.

I've made birds based on my family members...

bouquets of flowers,

buildings (barns),

the landscape around me,

food I've eaten,

birthday cards I have received,

cats,

the sky,

flowers, (oh yeah, I said that)

and even birds based on me.

I've made yellow birds,

and purple birds,

blue birds,

and black and white birds,

and pink birds.

I've made really big birds,

and really little birds. (The big pink bird is the same size as the blue bird in the picture with the two giant birds).

I've made birds of every color, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, gray and black. 

I've made birds based on every thing, people, friends, landscapes, plants, buildings, cats, dogs, butterflies, mountains, roads, cars, barns, skies, port-a-potties, airstream trailers, signs, you name it. 

I've made really big birds, and I've made tiny ones.

The idea of making ONE BIRD to commemorate the first 499 is more than a bit daunting. It's impossible.

So the next bird I make, the 500th, will be based on whatever happens to inspire me when I go into the studio the next time. It'll just be one in a long line of wonderful birds that each have their own story.

And it won't stop there.

Yes, you can make birds. You can get the tutorial here. And if you think I'm nuts for making 499, well, check this out: One customer wrote this review: "I got the tutorial, planning to make a bird quilt as a gift. I made one bird to test it out. The next thing I knew I had thirty-six."