067 - Red Geese Flying in Opposite Directions

Inspiration

The Trio of Geese quilt block was another Block Lotto choice.

Details

In my sampler quilt made from all of this years blocks, four of these blocks are used together as a design element.  Here are the blocks made from the January-through-October Lotto Block patterns on my design wall.

I am still playing with placement and proportions. The center block is a placeholder for a yet unrevealed block; it will actually become the quilt label on the back of the quilt. 

066 - Tall Red Monochromatic Bird Quilt Block

Inspiration

This block is one of twelve of the Block Lotto patterns for 2013 that I am using in a simple sampler quilt that has the working title, What's Red and White and has a Whole Lot of Quilting?

Details

After deciding to use ten Indigo Red fabrics for the red in my red and white quilt, the challenge became choosing fabrics that would have some contrast enough when put side by side.  I confess that the bird block is one of my less successful efforts ... when quilting is added, I believe it will help reinforce the more subtle differences.

Note

Obviously, after losing the momentum of this daily project, I haven't yet found it again.  I accept that I may not ever get back into the daily habit, but have decided to continue this now occasional feather effort until I reach the goal of 365 feathers ... whenever that happens. It seems that whether I am making things or not, I continue to conceive new bird/feather ideas–the potential for 365 feathers is here ... I just need to find the gumption (and time).

065 - Smaller Curved Feather-Inspired Leaf Shape

Inspiration

The last in the series of leaf appliqué shapes inspired by feathers.

Details

This one is a smaller, mirror-image of the previous leaf shape.

Each of the five feather-inspired leaf shapes are repeated in the four corners of the quilt design. My goal was to reinforce the idea of the red 8-pointed star-shapes as flowers without obscuring the light cream areas in the setting triangles around the center star. I may wake up tomorrow, walk into the studio and decide it needs something more, but, at the moment, I am thinking it's "done" and ready to be layered and basted for quilting.

Again, these rainy day photos in the studio are far less than desirable ... I really wanted to share, anyway :-)

064 - Small Curved Feather-Inspired Leaf Shape

Inspiration

More of the same, sized to fill the space and suggest leaves on a flowering vine.

Details

Curiously, this was the most challenging leaf to appliqué to the quilt top because it was farthest from the edge which meant I was manipulating more fabric in my hands.

It's a dark rainy day here ... and that's reflected in the quality of the photo.  Sorry.

063 - A Smaller Feather-inspired Leaf Shape

Inspiration

More of the same, altered to fit in the spaces of the quilt.

Details

Needle-turned appliqué as before.  As I add these quirky feather/leaf quilts, I realize that quality somehow makes this quilt design mine.

062 - Another Feather-Inspired Leaf Shape

Inspiration

Another of the long, thin, feather-ish shaped leaves I'm adding to the vine with flowers on a quilt-in-progress.

Details

Proportions were slightly altered to fit the space.  You can see the differences on this section of the vine, showing the two feather-inspired leaf-shaped appliquéd pieces.

061 - Feather-Inspired Leaf Shape

Inspiration 

In the world around me, I keep seeing feather shapes everywhere. So why not design a leaf, inspired by the shape of a feather?

Details

The feather-inspired leaf was hand-appliquéd by hand using the needle-turn technique.  This and more leaves like these will be used on this quilt project.

My original plan was to add rounder, more traditionally shaped leaves to the blue vine with the red star-flowers, but it didn't feel right.  (I blogged about it here.) I put it on the shelf until inspiration presented a new idea.  Still not sure it will work,  but this project gave me a reason to pursue it  ... even if I ultimately decide against it and take them all off again. 

060 - Long 2-color Abstract Feather

Inspiration

More of the same.

Details

This block measures 6 by 18 inches. It is a variation of the original long abstract feather, made in two colors, with triangle square along the feather's edge. 

This is the 6th in the series of abstract feather quilt blocks. Here's how the set of blocks look all together on my design wall. 

059 - Two-Color Abstracted Feather Quilt Block

Inspiration

A continuation in the series of traditional pieced quilt blocks based on an abstracted feather shape.

Details

This block measures 6 by 12 inches.

058 - Abstracted Fat Feather Redux

Inspiration

I continue to move through the variations in this series of abstracted feather quilt blocks.

Details

This quilt block measures 6 by 12 inches (finished size).

As I was making the small triangles squares, I thought how I might not have as easily followed this idea (and made all those 1 inch half-square triangle units) had I not been making the feathered star blocks with 56 of them in each block.

057 - Abstracted Feather Quilt Block

Inspiration 

Third time's a charm?  My traditionally pieced efforts seem to be morphing into something like a Princess Feather, a traditional appliqué design.  Hmmm.

Details 

Like my first effort, this block measures 6 by 12 inches. Here they are side-by-side.

056 - Abstracted Feather Quilt Block Redux

Inspiration

I wanted to play with the proportions of yesterday's effort.

Details

This block measures 6 by 18 inches.  It's still not quite feather-ish enough for me ...

Here are the two abstract feathers on my design wall (along with one of the curved-pieced bird blocks.

055 - Fat Feather Quilt Block

Inspiration

I wanted to create an abstracted feather quilt block design which could be traditionally pieced.

Details

The block measures 6 by 12 inches (finished size). I'm not crazy about the proportions of this "fat feather," but I think the idea has possibilities and will likely play with it a bit more.

054 - Yet Another Feathered Star Quilt Block

Inspiration

The fabrics for this, the fifth of the traditionally pieced feathered star blocks in this series, have been cut and ready to go for weeks. Today, I was inspired to finish up the last of the cut fabrics.

Details

This is yet another Feathered Star I block from Marsha McCloskey's book.

Whenever I get to this point in putting together the block, I always think how it's just a 9-patch.

As I make more of these blocks, I naturally start thinking about settings and borders.  I started thinking about the idea of an outer border of those tiny 1-inch triangle squares.  It felt a little overwhelming until I realized that there's 56 inches of those half-square triangle units in each block.

Since I now I have five of these blocks, I had to see how they'd look arranged on point.  I doubt they'll end up this way in the quilt (because of the fussy cut centers in some of the blocks), but it was fun to play with the idea.

053 - Another Feathered Star Quilt Block

Inspiration

Once restarted, I was on a roll ...

Details

This is the forth of the large, traditional feathered star quilt block.

 Practice is making me get closer to perfect with each block.   I am really happy with the intersection of seams at the tip of the diamonds in this block.

Here's how the four blocks made so far look together.

052 - Feathered Star Quilt Block

Inspiration

I just haven't been inspired to do anything creatively for the past few weeks, but have returned from my un-feathered funk by "just doing it" and making another of the large traditional feathered stars ... the fabrics for which have been cut and sitting on the work table in my studio for weeks.

Details

This is the third in the series of stars made from Marsha McCloskey's pattern for the 18 1/2-inch Feathered Star I from her book, Feathered Star Quilt Blocks I: Really Hard Blocks That Take a Long Time to Make.

051 - Large Appliqué Feather

Inspiration

After cleaning out my scrap bins of the red, orange, yellow, lime, green, blue, purple, red violet, and cream/tan scraps which found their way into flying geese blocks, I couldn't stop ... and wanted to do something with the black and white scraps.

Details

I enlarged the same feather silhouette which I used for the tiny pink feather pincushion to 8 by 15.5 inches and pieced some black and white fabric scraps to a slightly larger size and used the made fabric for my feather.

I used needle-turn appliqué and reverse appliquéd thee background to the made fabric. The teal batik fabric was cut away as I stitched, revealing the back and white crumb-pieced fabric underneath.  I have blogged more of the details of my process on Sophie Junction.




Here it is completed, beside the pincushion I made on day 1, using the same feather silhouette.

050 - More Blue Flying Geese

Inspiration

When I arranged (and re-arranged) the set of Flying Geese blocks made so far, I needed more blue.

Details

Remember the extra small squares I was making to use up the too-small-to-be-useful scraps? I used four of the blue ones to make the larger square that became the second set of blue geese.

Here are all my crumb-pieced flying geese together, sewn into 4 strip sets, ready for whatever's next. I've designated this as my project for a lovely finish in August in hopes that I'll finish my first quilt, started as a series of Daily Feathers.

It's definitely an example of how a small effort each day can result in something much larger and, seemingly, more complex. 

049 - Flying Geese made from (mostly) Orange Scraps

Inspiration

Knock knock.
Who's there.
Orange.
Orange who?
Orange you glad I'm almost out of small scraps to make these?

Details

I actually didn't think I had enough orange scraps to make the 13 1/4 inch square I needed to make these flying geese.  I added some warm browns from the brown bin, then wondered if I'd manage to achieve an overall impression of orange.  I can't believe it worked (and they read even more orange in person.)

048 - Flying Geese from Cream & Tan Scraps

Inspiration

As I work my way through my scrap bins, I am mostly inspired by the idea of having them all cleaned out of the small crumbs and freshly organized.

Details

I am not sure I will make geese from black and white fabrics or multicolor prints for this quilt project ... I may have to come up with another use for them to complete my scrap bin clean-up.

Here's how my design wall looks now, with 36 large flying geese on it.

047- Flying Geese from Green Crumbs

Inspiration

I continue to work my way through the too-small-for-most-projects scraps, color by color.

Details

Without the lime greens that I used yesterday, I was left with a collection of dull and dark fabrics to use in today's quartet of flying geese.  It reminded me of my scrap quilt mantra, "Light, bright, dull, dark." On their own, they are quite uninteresting, but combined with the rest of the blocks made so far, I think that they'll be OK.

046 - Flying Geese from Lime Crumbs

Inspiration

I'm still working my way through my scrap bins.  The green bin was over-flowing and so I firt pulled out the lime green scraps ... with more green geese to follow.

Details

These 6 by 12 inch flying geese blocks were made as before, by first piecing a large square from scraps, then using the 4-at-once, no waste method for making flying geese.

045 - Flying Geese from Red Violet Crumbs

Inspiration

There were enough red-violet fabric crumbs in the purple scrap bin, I made a second set of geese from the red-violet ones.

Details

Here's how six sets of four large 6-by-12-inch flying geese and the smaller blocks I've made with the left-overs look on my design wall today.

I'm adding this post to the Linky list for Design Wall Monday.

44 - Purple Flying (Geese made from) Crumbs

Inspiration

More of the same ... 

Details

A wide range of colors end up in my purple bin–enough for me to pull out the red-violet ones and put them aside to turn them into a set of their own ... coming soon.

043 - Yellow Crumb-y Flying Geese

Inspiration

I continue cleaning out scrap bins, color by color.  I'm afraid my daily project will continue to be predictable for another week or so.

Details 

These 6 by 12-inch flying geese units are made as described before.

I have been making one large square for the flying geese and using up the rest of the mostly too-small scraps in smaller 6 1/2-inch squares.  They may become a border, part of the back or show up in a future project.

Here's how the 4 sets of large flying geese made from scraps look together.

I think it's starting to get interesting.

042 - Flying (Geese made from) Blue Crumbs

Inspiration

More from my scrap bin clean-up

Details

See the Pink geese for details on how these were made.

041 - Large Crumby Red Flying Geese

Inspiration

More geese made from fabric made from the crumbs in my red scraps bin.

Details

Each flying geese unit measures 6 by 12 inches (finished size). Blocks are made using the 4-at-a-time, no waste method.

This is the second post today to make up for Monday, when after a sleepless night, I wasn't able to complete a daily feather.

040 - Large Pink Crumby Flying Geese

Inspiration

I've begun cleaning out the small pieces of fabric (AKA "crumbs") from my scrap bins, with the idea of making large squares of made fabric.

I plan to make a series of large flying geese units as part of this project.  These pink geese are the first.

Details

Each of the flying geese units will measure 6 by 12 inches when sewn into a quilt.

I started by trimming the made fabric to 13 1/4-inches square.  I added 4 black 6 7/8-inch squares and used the no-waste method for making flying geese units.