"QUEEN MARY'S GARDEN" © 2024 - A Predatory Bird, Large and in Charge

Property predatory birds, yeah, we got 'em.  We live on part of the Hawk Pride Mountain range in extreme northwest Alabama (more like a molehill really, but it is on the map as such).

This is my version of  Pride Mountain Hawk (no giggling, Sue).  There are swarms of them soaring on the air thermals over our canyon (again, remember we are on a molehill).

If our hawks were this colorful, I would bare my little feathered chest and look vulnerable just to get an up-close look.

Even though most my feather color palette is completely absurd, I've been trying to use fabrics for bird bodies, feet, and some wings that actually look like bird parts.  I've been collecting small pieces of tone-on-tone possibilities for a long time. Here are a few of my favorites.

Swirly... 

Feathery...

Grassy...

Occasionally, a fabric line will come out with pieces depicting shingles, tiles, stones, and bricks that are appropriately vague enough to pass as bird bodies.

Stoney...

Spotty, woody, geometric, woven, animal, ordinary...

I like to use a funky tone-on-tone fabric instead of a solid.  It creates movement across the quilt, snatching the eye from motif to motif.

This next little fellow just has Short Snack written all over him (yes, that is his name).  He just looks delicious, in a jelly bean kind of way.  Haven't seen one?  That's because they are so small...and mute, maybe. 

Mr. Fabulous is below.   He is very showy in all the wrong places.  This beaky fellow has a loud, braggadocious call, hence a short lifespan. 

This is a Gerbera Sparrow and she is why I can't grow daisies on the property.  The blooms disappear before I ever see them. 

While waiting for inspiration worthy of blog posting, I managed to catch up with a few things.  

I love brite and scrappy!  These 4-inch blocks, with no internal matching seams, are one of my easy 'therapy projects.'  I can't help but feel sunny when I play with brites, blacks, and whites.  I have a lot of pieces cut and ready to go when there's a cloud hanging over me.

I can just stop when I feel that enough is enough.  The setting I have in mind works with any number of blocks finished.  It's not a race.

We enjoyed theater in Atlanta with our daughter playing the cruel school matron, Ms. Trunchbull, in "Matilda, the Musical."  Who knew she was raised to act so mean and nasty?

I prepared my initials and year of completion for "Queen Mary's Garden."  Of course it wasn't quilted in 2024, but finishing the top was close enough for me.

I spent a lot of time with my fabulous Aunt Katrina who will be 97 years young in October.

I worked on some pieced utility quilts for nieces and nephews...waaaay overdue.

Until next time, beware of Pride Mountain Hawks!

Teresa - - - - - - 

"QUEEN MARY'S GARDEN" © 2024 - Feathers are flying!

Howdy, Birders (hi Sue)!

I think this bird looks a little turkey-ish.  Tom Turkey's feathers are fun and not as hard as you might think.  I love to play with as many fabrics as I can.  It gives me a little thrill to use all the snips and strips that I can't keep from curating over time for my applique.

My fingers are complete rubbish at handling the little pieces, always have been. Tweezers, like the one shown below, are an extension of my fingers, especially now that age is starting to creep up on me.  Lessened manual dexterity and some numbness are bothering my 12-yr-old personality, and I throw a lot of pre-teen tantrums.

Like all of us, right?    

The tweezers help me fork and chopstick my way through the little scraps and tiny freezer paper pieces that I insist on handling.  Also, my short fingernails have always made it difficult to scrape up little freezer paper giblets I drop on tables and floors.

Tiny pieces with a few glue dots are my building materials.  Tweezers have always made handling them possible.

I love the weight of an old iron and pattern weights to keep things tight and where I want them. When the tiny dots of Roxanne's glue baste are set just enough, I can continue with the next piece of the pattern puzzle.  Pure joy!

Glue basted and ready for stitching!  I stitch the individual motifs together before applying to the border background.  I can move the birds and beasts around a few times as the ambiguous design process continues. Having already stitched motifs before, I'm free to make last minute changes.

He just needs an eyeball!

The Tom Turkey's very tall friend is sort of road runner, maybe?  Hellon Wheels has a lean body for speed, freakish long legs because I could, and big feet for the fun of it.  

Big feet are so comical to me, but they also allow me simplicity and ease as I lightly glue and turn under the edges. Dainty, skinny, difficult, wire-like bird claws are for, well, are for the birds!  

Next, a fish dinner for a never quite full pelican.  Mr. Tubb's tiny eye was a fun challenge.  Fabric with tiny- to medium-sized black dots make the reverse applique easy.

I call this one my Firebird...mostly because she looks like she's on fire.  She resembles Henny-Penny in my mind, who thought the sky was falling in my childhood.

As I said before, there were some other things happening while away from the blog the last 5-6 years.  Sometimes the creative mojo just isn't there and I need to hippity-hop to something else for a bit.

Here are some more things and projects I was doing while waiting for the mojo...and birds...to fly back for the season.

I made twelve different sampler blocks for my retreat group, The Magnolia Quilters, challenge.  Ha!  The non-piecer finished them first!

We went up to our family property in Grass Creek, Kingston, Ontario, CA for a better view of the 4/8/2024 total eclipse.

It got pretty dark!  This was mid-morning at corona. We met up with immediate family from all over.  There may not be another total eclipse in mine and Steve's lifetime (but one for our daughter in 2035, I think).

If you can enlarge pictures, you can actually see the dark moon right in the middle of the sun!

TOTALLY worth the long drive from Alabama!

I finally succumbed to the seductive Kaffe Fassett and started another project.  USA economy, you are welcome.

I performed doll amputations for future weird crafts (Barbie and her friends donated heads for the pincushions I distributed at the retreat of March 2025, gals).

Until next time, don't lose your heads and have a good time!

In stitches, 

Teresa - - - - - - - 

"QUEEN MARY'S GARDEN" © 2024 - Tweet-Tweet!

Incoming!  More birds have landed, including Nipper.  I don't know how many cases of bird violence happened in the Middle Ages, but there are so many pictures of birds biting themselves in old manuscripts, or other creatures/people. 

They must have been hungry...

Gorgeous George is a dandy, always wooing someone or something with blooms from my garden.

For a single motif, I've been applique-stitching all the little pieces together as a unit, finishing most of the awkward, remaining process as possible.  

Then, once I figure out where I want each border item, I glue- or thread-baste it to the border strip.  This makes it much easier to finish the application of the motif...just stitching the outside.  

I only have to hold that awkward border strip mess long enough to stitch around the perimeter.

  

I can also play with motifs, laying them and pinning on the empty border strips.  I can visually judge how size, variety, shape, and color play with each other.  I want things 'balanced' so my eye bounces all over the finished quilt, rather than 'pull focus' to one area.

Movement over a quilt surface is a good thing, says Hooters!

I have been using reverse-applique for most of the bird eyes because it makes them 'sink below' the surface, recessed, like a real-life eye socket.  Owls always seem surprised and eye-prominent, so I stitched them on the motif surface so they pop!

It's the difference between this...

And this...

Or, this (remember the song?  "She's Got Bette Davis Eyes")...

Ok, enough of THAT!

I've been up to other things as well since I seemingly fell off the face of the earth...

I'm finally basting my version of "Bunnies Prefer Chocolate"...

 

I got a Squamous Cell Carcinoma removed...

Steve turned my plastic folding table into a fantastic ironing station...

(The quilt pieces in the background?  Projects temporarily take over part of the family room from time to time.  When I go down to the walk-out basement, I find that cotton stuff has just opened the Quilt Cave door and exploded out of the Cave.  I don't know how that happens?!)

Crossword puzzles...

More later.  Until the next post, happy stitching!

Teresa   - - - - - -