More Scrappy Square-in-a-Square


This one took me a while to complete because I fell prey to that old problem of not having enough fabric for the binding. I really wanted to use the same accent orange fabric that I'd used for the first border. But of course that was scrap from a previous table runner I'd made for my mother. And I'd also fussycut those little birds out of that scrap too. So it sat unfinished for quite a while until I found some amusing orange chicken fabric at Charlton Sewing Center. Don't worry I bought plenty of chicken fabric for future projects.

The top for this went together very quickly and with scraps and fat quarters from the stash. Had some good civil war reproduction fabrics, vintage fabrics, and some interesting contemporaries. After I pieced it I thought it needed something, so the birds appliques got added, and then the orange border. Kathy Sperino did the quilting for me - fabulously. And of course she made nice feathers all in the border.

This is now on the bed in the spare bedroom so guests be welcome to sleep with the birds. It was only after I did this that I found out about a susperstition that some people have about birds in the house. Apparently no one told people in my family about this as my grandmother had a large collection of bird figurines and such, as does my mother. Lucille Ball apparently wouldn't stay anywhere that even had pictures of birds. There's a good article on the superstition on snopes.
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Tip - Deciding on a Quilting Design

My friend Liza asked me for some advice on how she should quilt a baby quilt she'd made. We discussed some different ideas, then I came up with an idea on how to preview it. She took a picture of her quilt. I opened it in MSPaint (the standard paint program that comes on Windows), but you could use whatever paint/photo editing software you have. I then just drew on the picture different looks for the quilt lines in light gray. It's not perfect, but definitely helps you visualize what the finished quilt could look like. Neat!