Birds in the Air

I have started putting together a quilt for my niece.  She works at a Wild Bird store and has developed a real interest in birds.  I received a new bird feeder for Christmas, and she and I got to talking about birds.  The bird feeder is supposed to appeal to Chickadees, and she said they were favorite, which was a surprise as they are also my favorite wild bird.  I think they are just the cutest birds with their little top notch,

So I had told Joy that I would make her quilt and I had a Chickadee block I had made in a David Taylor class that I could incorporate into her quilt.  I showed her the block and she loved it. 

So I started using EQ to design a quilt around this block which is approx 14 1/2" square.  In the meantime I came across the beautiful panel of bird pictures.  The selvage says Tracy Lizotte for Elizabeth Studio, Pattern 4309.  It has 12 images, one of which I have already prepped to use in the quilt, but here are the other 11.  They are so realistic, look almost like paintings.

In EQ I decided to use the Birds in the Air block for my quilt and intersperse the bird pictures and my Chicadee block.   Here is the EQ drawing I came up with.

I spent a couple weeks cutting out blue fabric for the blocks, as I really want it to look scrappy. Joy did tell me her favorite color is blue, all shades of blue. My blues can be prints with other colors, as long as the blue is the most prominent.  Also, I wanted true blue - no teals.  I think I accomplished that for the most part.   I started making the blocks, but since there are 10 in the first row, it took me a few weeks to get 9 blocks of different fabrics for the first row, which also includes one of the bird images.  I need 104 Birds in the Air blocks, and so far I have 52 made.  I raided my stash, and got between 2 to 8 blocks cut from each fabric.  I may need a few more, but will see when I get closer to have it done.  I finally put the first row together on my design wall, and must say, I like the way it is looking.

I am paper piecing the blocks using freezer paper....so back to the sewing.

Brimfield and Gentle Gems Completed!

 Yea, for January I have two "completed" projects to show.  

The first I will share is my sweet little Gentle Gems, a Val Laird BOM for 2021.  Her 2022 BOM is a Calendar one that looks really cute, but I have already committed to a different project and better hold off on that one.

The next is my Brimfield block quilt.  This quilt is English Paper Pieced blocks that are hand appliqued to the background.  I hand quilted using big stitch with Bold weight Coats and Clark hand quilting thread.  I decided that rather than make a label, I would just "sign" the quilt the way my mom always did.  She embroidered her name and year the quilt was finished on the back. Sometimes I want to write a little about the history of the quilt, so I do a label - but in this case, I just wanted to sign it.

Now on to another UFO and also getting ready to start a new project.  

January Organization

 At a recent retreat of my club Stitchin' Friends, Linda D challenged us to get organized and is going to get us started by giving us one task to do each month.  Well for January, it was actually two tasks:

1 - Clean out all your pens, pencils, markers, etc and throw away what no longer works.

2 - Clean out the wheels of your chair

Well I have a new chair and the wheels are nice and pretty and clean, so I did not have to do that one, but now the other was quite a challenge.

Here is the before picture: This is a nice tray/box that someone gave me years ago and it sets in a file cabinet drawer beside my sewing table...over the years, I have just dumped so many markers, pens, hi-highters, mechanical pencils and other stuff.  So I took every thing out, decided what I wanted to keep, threw away pens and markers that no longer had ink and put away stuff that did not belong in there.

Before

This is the box after.  I was amazed at the pens and markers that no longer work.  I used containers that sugar free drink packets come in to sort what I had left.  The plastic storage box will hopefully go home with the grandkids - its full of mechanical pencils and pens that I no longer use or want.  I even had room to put my note pads that I can never find when I need them.

AFTER

I did find some stuff in the box that did not belong there and have either throw away or put away where they belong

And there is one mystery - any idea what this is?   I don't know where I got it or what its for, but its just too darn cute to throw away, so it went back in the box: