Dec. 6 – Hummingbird Fantasy

1998 – This quilt was part of a guild “Ugly Fabric Challenge”.  It was awarded Viewer’s Choice – Best of Fabric Challenge at the Cotton Country Quilter’s 1998 quilt show in Bastrop, LA.  This was my first ribbon!!

We each were given a fat quarter of some lime green fabric and another fat quarter of some tropical fish fabric.  This was my first try at putting a quilt together without an official pattern.

 

I chose 2 different paper-pieced hummingbird patterns from the book, 500 Quilt Blocks.    I fussy-cut the fish fabric into different pieces and used the “fish”  and blue water background pieces to make the bright areas on the birds.  I also used lots of the lime green and a few fabrics from my stash.

 

The quilting designs were from A Treasury of Quilting Designs, by Linda Goodmon Emery.  The daffodil quilting in the center piece was executed using different colors of thread, and I used metallic gold thread for the circle around the flowers.

Lessons learned:  That pale yellow bird on the right side bugs me…  I should have chosen a little brighter fabric.  Every time I look at this quilt I wish I had taken more time in the placement of the birds because I have a couple of blue ones too close together.  I was VERY please with the hand quilting… this was my best effort at this point.  Another lesson learned… plan ahead.  We were only allowed 1 fat quarter of the lime green fabric.  I wanted to use it for the binding but I did not have enough left to make a double-fold binding.  I had to do a single-fold and it really is more flimsy and does not stand up as well.

Teaser for tomorrow:  If you lived in the country, what kind of fence might you have?  It’s a guy quilt, and I think you’ll like it!

Quilting update:  Only 7 more quilts to get done before Christmas.  :)  Making good progress!  Today after church I hope to get the borders put on that Christmas surprise quilt so it will be ready to quilt as soon as customer quilts are completed.

Kat