Buzzard

(Yes, the picture is sideways – I took the photo this morning, but didn’t realise until now that I’d put the block up the wrong way. So rather than try and re-photograph it in the less than ideal light now, I just rotated the photo, even though it looks weird 🙂 ) Anyway, Buzzard done. …

Slow progress

You may have noticed a slowing down in the production of birds lately. That’s because these last few are so much more complicated than the earlier ones. With the first few birds, I could easily churn one out over a couple of evenings, but these later ones need a lot more concentration to make sure…

Shag

(Ok, so Tartankiwi calls it a cormorant, but I’m a New Zealander – it’s a shag :-)) This one went so much better than the kestrel – all the seams lined up first time. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to make one of the birds blue, seeing as I’m using a blue background, but…

So far

Because I couldn’t quite make up my mind what fabrics to use for the next bird, this afternoon I laid out all the ones I’ve done so far, hoping seeing the overall effect would help me decide.  It’s the first time I’ve actually looked at them all together, and they look pretty impressive: They also…

By the light of day

I had another look at the kestrel in daylight, and having let enough time pass for the frustration at not getting it to work right to subside, and I’m feeling a lot happier about it now. The misalignment isn’t nearly as bad as I’d thought, and (as a couple of you pointed out) hardly even…

I give up

I unpicked the seam on the kestrel, and very very carefully lined the two halves back up, and pinned and basted it, and checked again that the crucial part of the wing matched properly, and sewed the seam… and it still doesn’t quite line up.  So that’s it.  I’m giving up and accepting the fact…

Hate it when that happens

Nope, that definitely doesn’t line up. Even though I spent ages checking and double-checking and was sure it lined up properly before I sewed the final seam, I must have moved it slightly while I was sewing it and now it is just off enough to be totally noticeable (to me, anyway), so I’m going…

Half a duck

I haven’t been posting in-progress pictures of the birds, because the birds themselves are kind of an in-progress for the quilt itself, but I had to post this one, just to show you how complicated they’re starting to get now: Yeah, all those individual pieces (including the two at the top I haven’t done yet)…

Swallowing

The birds are definitely getting harder as we go along.  Getting all the sections to line up properly on the swallow was hard work (and, although you can’t really tell in the finished square, I didn’t entirely succeed), especially that final seam.  And this is only the half-way point!  I suspect the final few birds…