"Around Town" a.k.a. Pigeons

The original drawing of my idea

The Frisco Quilt Guild is now working on the raffle quilt for 2012.

Our theme is "Around Town."

Each member who wanted to participate was given a fat quarter of sky blue Moda marbles and asked to make a block no bigger than 12" square and no smaller than 6". They can make what ever they want to make as long as it is something that you might see around town, any town.

These blocks will be eligible for a competition at our next quilt meeting. People who didn't want to make a block were asked to make filler blocks.

Pigeon parts?

One of my favorite sights is the gathering of birds on power lines. They are always so evenly spaced and always flocked together. When a new bird comes along the other move over. I laugh and tease with my kids that there is some serious grumbling going on up there...then warn them not to walk under those power lines.

This time of year the bird of the hour is the pigeon. There must be hundreds of them! (And they do make a huge mess.) I thought that batik fabrics would make perfect pigeons. No two of them look alike. I love their silly mottled feathers.

I dug through my scraps and found a pile that might work. (Ignore the piles of laundry in the top of the photo!)

The first thing I did was make several photo copies of my drawing on the paper side of freezer paper. You can buy it in 8.5x11 sheets from craft stores. The shiny side of the paper will stick to fabric when ironed. This allows me to cut out the little pieces without using pins. It made the process much easier.

Next - I attached Mistyfuse to the back of the fabrics I selected.

I used to absolutely hate using this stuff, but have since changed my mind. If you have the correct tools this material is a dream to work with. The introduction of an Applique Pressing sheet changed the experience from torture to dream. You can see through the sheet and use it to place all of your pieces correctly before you adhere them to the base fabric. After ironing the pieces together it is a breeze to lift them off and position them as one unit on the base.

I decided to add another bird...

I used a left over bit of black satin ribbon for the phone lines.

On my first attempt I used pins to position the ribbon. I later decided that glue stick was more effective and a million times easier.

Appliqued with a machine button stitch and grey thread

Using a small blanket stitch on my sewing machine I spent the day attaching the birds permanently.

I don't like the way it looks. The birds look too heavy and clumsy. As if pigeons are graceful birds...ha...but they deserve better than this.

Much better!

So I did it again the next day.

This time I used Fray Check around the pieces and then sewed with a normal stitch in a darker color.

All I need to do now is add some eyes - I'm thinking little black seed beads or french knots - and some talons and I will be ready for guild.

I can't wait to see what everyone else comes up with.

PS. I won second place in a members favorite vote! How cool is that?