Birdhouse Wallhanging - Day 1

The icy birdhouses outside yesterday put me in the mood to start on my McKenna Ryan "Sleeps Six" art quilt. This is my next wallhanging after taking the class for the "Wooly Good Friends" sheep quilt--which still needs those little plastic rings on the back so I can hang it. I'll purchase some as soon as the ice melts on Teeter Hill. Today's high is a non-melting 28 degrees, and tonight it's back down to a chilly 10, so it may be the weekend before we emerge from our quilting workshop.

It was a good afternoon for beginning the borders. I am not a whiz at rotary cutting, so I was a little shaky until I measured, re-measured, and made sure I was cutting the batik correctly.

I love the background fabric on the left. I purchased 1/3 yard of the recommended Hoffman PN014, Amethyst. You can tell that the colors bleed into one another. The bottom portion is deep purple and gradually fades into light purple, which leads to an aqua-greenish blue, which eventually turns light blue.  I cut a piece 31-1/2 inches by 9-1/2 inches, so it was up to me to decide if I wanted the background to include more of the purple or more of the blue. I opted for about equal.

The bright splashes of jumbled reds, purples, and blues of the outer border fabric (top right in the picture) are quite wild. The fabric store didn't carry the Hoffman 884 Raspberry recommended, so we had to pick and choose our matches. In fact, of all the fabrics recommended in the pattern--which means McKenna Ryan has matched and chosen all the perfect blends for each birdhouse color and literally has done a ton of work already in color coordination--the store only carries the one background fabric. All the other matching was up to me, with lots of help from Hannah.

So...what I completed on Day 1 afternoon: thoroughly read the directions before beginning, ironed my fabric, trial and error with the rotary cutter, completed the cutting of the background, and cut inner and outer borders. I held off sewing all the borders because Sarah was using the machine to finish the last of her quilt blocks, which are looking very nice.

This afternoon on Day 2 I will sew all the borders to the background piece and begin tracing the individual applique pieces. Hopefully, I'll have pictures tomorrow to share.

*** For those asking...Tom made it home late last night just in time to ask about our day and then crashed. He was up again at 4 a.m. this morning and will have another late night. Extra crews are being brought in today to help with the outages, so we are praying this marathon day will be the end of the dubbed Valentine's Day Ice Storm!

~Deb

Comments

[Randi]

Well, I guess if anything you have something to keep you busy during your freezing temps! Enjoy and keep warm!

[Tammy]

A neat project to tackle.I am sure you are having fun and look forward to seeing pictures.

Glad to hear that Tom made it home.At the time he was waking up I was drving Chris to the airport.he left again for Wisconsin-8 days this time.

[Susan]

Oh boy! A project! I can't wait to see more pics and hear how you're doing every day.

[Dorothy]

Wow! That wall hanging is beautiful! Birds are already visiting my feeders in the back yard. I was so happy! The project looks difficult and detailed. It will be fun to see pictures of your finished handiwork. It is cold here today...supposed to be 26 in the morning, but no ice or snow like you. Hope Tom isn't gone too long today. Have a great weekend! Thanks for the snail mail! :-) Still wishing I had some of those hot sourdough English muffins! How did they taste? They looked yummy!