Friday, November 6, 2009

Birdies in a Tree Whimsical Quilt

Ta da! Announcing my newest creation, a sweet strip quilt with whimsical applique birds in a tree. All a custom one-of-a-kind design for someone very dear to my heart, my sister. My sister is having her first baby, and I wanted her to have something to cherish from me. I showed her a few quilt ideas and she showed me a few of her favorites...and using the bird fabric I found as my inspiration springboard, this quilt was born.
I was very excited to use the whimsical tree. I love applique and the compilation seemed so exicting, that I neglected several other things so I could finish this to take to my sister last month! (We live four states away.)
While working on another quilt, I had a "happy accident," as my high school art teacher would say. I sewed some ribbon to the backside and it formed loops in and out of the quilting stitching. While I had to unpick that quilt, I gave me a fabulous idea to do a ribbon ruffle and ricrac around the applique tree boughs. I love how it turned out. 3-D things on quilts are so much fun! Here is a closeup of the sweet daddy bird flying home to his nest.I love the quilt's color combination of raspberry, dark chocolate, cream, and lime green. It's almost good enough to eat! I used soft raspberry-colored minkie fabric for the backing and stop border. I love minkie! I hope the baby will snuggle up in it and know it is a hug from her aunt.
I had a lot of fun quilting it, too. That's a very creative process for me as well. I quilted butterflies, spirals, trees, stripes, flowers, and puzzle patterns all over. And I am getting so much faster at quilting, too! It only took me two days to quilt this one.
You can see the quilting stitching details better here. Really, this sounds like I am bragging, but is it bad to love something you made so much?! I am already tossing ideas around in my head for my brother's baby-on-the-way...stay tuned for a new design in a couple of months!