Kauffman Designs: March Paper Piecing Challenge

Monday, March 27, 2017

March Paper Piecing Challenge

One of the fun things about being an Ambassador for Island Batik is that we all have a challenge each month. Every month is something different, and this month it was a challenge to make a small quilt with either paper piecing or English paper piecing.

Since I love to paper piece, I decided to work with that instead of English paper piecing. I also thought it might be fun to do something besides just repeating blocks which I have done a lot of in the past.
After a lot of thought and effort - this is my finished quilt called Nighttime at the Nest.
Size is: 20" x 15"

This quilt was a true challenge for me. I decided to use the fabric Rivers Edge. Island Batik sent me this lovely 2 1/2 strip pack that includes strips of the different fabrics in the line. I find that 2 1/2" strips work really well when doing paper piecing.

When I got to really looking at the fabrics I noticed that the fabrics all tended to fall into dark/black, medium brown and lighter brown. Not a lot of variance in the colors. I didn't know what to do for a long time. What could I make with basically three colors?

I decided it would probably be a night scene, and the browns looked like they could work for animals or birds. I found the free bird foundation pattern on Pinterest
I changed a line or two on the pattern and reduced it to the size I wanted. I also reversed one pattern so that I could have two birds facing each other.

I was happy with how the birds turned out. I used three different fabrics for each bird- hoping this would give the subtle look of a male and female. Do you see the printed fish swimming on the black background at the top? I did NOT want fish in the quilt, so I deliberately cut the black fabrics so they were not recognizable.

I decided to make the birds perched on the edge of a nest. One bird is angled slightly. I wasn't quite sure how to proceed with making the nest. I wanted to put two eggs in the nest. I picked out a blue Island Batik basic called Shark for the eggs because the blue matched the blue in the black/blue fabrics I later used for the borders. I needle turned the eggs and put two layers of light batting inside to give them a curved look, then added scraps of leftover fabrics, bits of thread and cord for the nest. I partially sewed some strips, lightly glued some and left some to fluff out. I did this before basting and finishing the quilt.

Notice how the piecing above the birds heads doesn't have any fish now! There are actually three different black fabrics in the background. They are very similar.

I wanted to make it look like the birds had made a nest in the rafters, so I created a paper pieced pattern to give that effect. It is actually one pattern and one reversed pattern. There were a couple fabrics that had black backgrounds with blue designs, so these were used in the rafter blocks. Eyes were added with small beads.

Here is the quilt again - Nighttime at the Nest