The birdy made me do it

Last week I resurrected an older project.  We all have this happen from time to time.  When we start we just love it to death, then something goes wrong, or you get side tracked, and it goes in the "too hard"basket for a while.  That is what happened with the bird.

I first saw the original of this quilt in the North Carolina Quilts book.  If you do not have this book, it is worth looking out for.  There are some stunning applique and pieced quilts.

 To me, there is something so elegant and peaceful about this bird in flight.  I loved it from the first sight of it.  I just knew I had some of that similar Column or Pillar type fabric, and my interest just grew from there.  It was made around 1830-50.  There is a story about the family in the book.  They are not actually sure which member of the  Brandon family made it.

In the book there is a close up if the bird in flight, and you can see the background quilting as well.  All the applique is done as blanket stitch, with very fine stitches.  You need a magnifying glass to see it in the photos.  I am doing mine as needle-turn.

The next challenge was to find suitable fabrics for the Broderie Perse floral motifs around the bird.  I have a box of BP type fabrics, but none were "just right" -  some were too big for the space, others had a dark background (which makes it hard to make the applique stitches invisible) some the wrong colour.  So......I had to buy some more fabric!

I ended up with this fabric.  it has small, medium and larger flowers, all that I can use, and isolate them to be cut out.  I already had this fabric with a blue background, but that would not do!  In case you want to find some for yourself it is Arabesque by Petra Prins and Nel Kooiman for Dutch Heritage.

The other really interesting part of this quilt is the array of borders.  There appear to be 4 borders in all.  I raided the stash for this!  I buy unique border fabrics whenever I see them.  Then they sit, for years sometimes, waiting for the right project.

I have no idea what I will be using on the borders yet, but just playing around. 

I am alternating between doing this applique, and quilting my Maltaville Album quilt.  Depends on the weather.  We are still getting some cool nights so, that is great weather for some quilting. 

You can not actually see the stitches, but I have quilted in the ditch next to the sashing, and now I have started going around the shapes........long way to go yet!