and Feet.....

Just Call Me Ms. Frankenstein....

How to sew the body parts together:

1. Sew the base to the tail feathers.
2. Sew the rest of the tail feathers.
3. Sew the body to the tail.
4. Sew on the right wing.
5. Sew on the left wing.
6. Take a break.
7. Be impressed with yourself.
8. Tape the bird to the background.
9. Sew all the way around. Change colors often and don't forget those tiny little pieces where the background shows between the body and the wing.
10. Trim. (From the back.)
11. Be impressed with yourself again. (Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back.)
12. Maybe he needs some feet?
13. Start building courage to actually quilt this thing....

Texas Star

I am completely scatter-brained.
No, really.

Last week I went to the Dallas Guild meeting and in the pre-meeting roaming around to see what is going on I discovered another Challenge. Now, you've all seen my list of things to do- do you think I need another project?
Not hardly.

The show is in the spring and there is a block challenge to be entered in the show. When the show is over, they will quilt the squares into a raffle quilt. The theme of the show is "Stars".

So I get home and open my little bag of instructions and scraps of fabric and start reading the rules. Right off the bat, this has to be a PIECED block, not applique. It has to have stars on it (obviously). The background has to be the beige fabric and the blue and burgundy have to be used. There are squares of yellow, brown and green which are optional and you can use your own fabrics if the coordinate (huh, like quilters are going to use fabrics that don't match?) The finished size is 12" X 12", so unfinished it is 12 1/2" X 12 1/2".

Now, I am immediately puzzled about how I am going to piece in this mandatory beige background. (I'm thinking that it is going to be the size of the block, right? So where do the seam allowances come from?) No such luck. The beige fabric is 10 1/4" X 11" maybe, and someone has ironed it so off-kilter that it looks like a trapezoid. So, thoroughly peeved I call mom and start ranting.

Mom is laughing so hard I can't even understand what she is saying. No help there.

Let's table that problem for later.

So what kind of star to make? My original thought was to make a really small version of an eight-pointed star. I've probably made 50 of them by now, so I should be able to make a really small version, maybe 1/2" pieces? But after thinking about it for a bit, I decided that if it is going to go with a bunch of other blocks in a raffle quilt maybe it should be a Texas star. Hmmm. 5 points around one of those- what am I going to do about that?


So there is a great website which you can find here:
http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/
It allows you to design your own graph paper, which gives me a way to make polar (circular) graph paper with 5 main spokes and 10 secondary spokes. So I have a template to start with. I drew the first star (well, I drew a lot of them but only put a couple of them on here) and decided that while I really liked those cascading pieces in the center star, there would just be way too much bulk to be able to handle.

The second picture is the design I ended up with, and the bottom one is all of them placed together. I did have to modify the blue pieces a bit- another bulk problem that got modified on the fly...











So here is the finished block, ready to be submitted. Notice the star is interwoven with that burgundy pentagon?

Karen was here on Sunday sewing with me and she suggested the border to deal with size and stabilization issues. I really like the way this came out. Guess I may end up making one like this in a full size quilt.

ps: OK, Liri- Let's see if this works. Here is a copy of the template. Try saving this and then blowing it up to letter size when you print it. If that doesn't work, I'll send the file to your email.

So I worked all week on getting some more of my goldfinch completed. I only managed to get as much done all week as I can do in one day on the weekend. Isn't that a bummer? It just really makes me resent having to go to work. Don't know why. Guess I'll spring for another lottery ticket this week...

I did finally get the front wing finished, so I moved on to the tail today. Here is the pattern and a couple of pieces of the tail traced on freezer paper.

And here is what I got done by the end of the day. Not too much progress this weekend as I spent yesterday at the circus (whoo hoo Barnum & Bailey!) and the rest of the afternoon at the shop with my car for some maintenance. But still, he is coming along...

Okay, the one thing I do miss about the old site is the ability to respond back to comments.

1. Yes, those are goldfinches. You probably wouldn't have noticed them, Love, because by the time they get down here in the winter their colors are all washed out. They are a kind of yellowy brown color in the winter. The gold is their breeding plumage. They eat at thistle feeders.

2. Very cool Osprey pictures. I think I just killed 10 minutes watching them. I wonder how I could get a really good non-copyright shot of them?

3. One of my small group members wanted to take an applique class and I joined her. Of course, when you have time to kill in a quilt shop, you can get into all kinds of trouble. I bought these Masterpiece Superior Threads as a set and have used them for all my hand applique. You can find them here: http://www.softexpressions.com/software/threads/SUbobs2.php#don


4. It's not hard to get a lot done when you don't even get out of your pajamas all weekend because you are quilting away! Right now I am griping to mom because all I can get done during the weeknights is 3 feathers. Humbug!

5. I got home and mom's package was on the doorstep. Ann's came yesterday and I think I still have pictures to post for Beth's blocks. There was chocolate in both of the packages from mom and Ann. Did I mention that it was 106 degrees here today? (which is 41 degrees Celsius) I think it sounds much better in Celsius! Chocolate is in the fridge setting up. It probably won't be pretty, but I guess it will taste just fine! I think I will skip the lawn mowing today and curl up with my magazines and chocolate...

The Latest Bird Quilt

You guys know me too well. :)

Dad took this picture the day after I left. He was trying to get a picture of mama sticking here head out the window. These raiders are headed for the hummingbird feeder to drink out of the well to catch the bugs. I had him send me the full- size file and blew it way up. This is only 12" square.

Time for Some Bird Photograpy

I swear, when summer comes there is just not enough time to do everything. Especially quilt.

But I got to spend some time in mom's backyard after our trip and played with dad's camera. (Whooo, it's a nice one!) Their little buddy was nestled up in the willow tree and I managed to take a bunch of back lit photos. So I have him really good in silhouette.

As it turns out, most of my bluebird pictures are actually of hummingbirds. Which is quite a surprise. Because it was a complete fluke that they turned out and are in focus.

As dad says- "I'd rather be lucky than good, any day!"

That's mama bluebird. We're guessing she has eggs.

Dad likes this perch in the willow tree. This time of day it is too shady.

I think this is mama again. Mom says she is usually the skittish one but I had no luck with daddy.

Bored and waiting on bluebirds, serendipity struck. (That's when you dig for worms and strike gold.)





I believe these are all the female ruby-throat. There were some great acrobatics with two of them chasing in circles around the bush, but my photography skills are just not up to that...