three little birds quilt

I really love how this quilt came out so bear with me here. The top and bottom birds on the quilt front are made with fabric from a great shop called the Hungry Palette. They carry their own line of brilliant hand-screened fabric. I bought a few bags of scraps when I worked a summer job at this lovely spot a good while ago. Of course, now I really wish I had purchased more. The middle bird and binding is Kaffe Fassett. The quilt is mostly machine pieced, appliqued and quilted except for the hand-quilting of a few falling leaves, which don’t show well in these photos.

Here is that troublemaker I wrote about in an earlier post. I thought he ended up looking kind of sweet just hanging out that way, so I left him as is.

This was my first attempt at quilting “woodgrain.” Inspiration for the woodgrain came from this talented crafter. The stitches are fairly uneven, but if you don’t put your face right up to the fabric, I think it looks pretty good.

When I was finishing the top, I got a little nervous that it was just too darn brown for a baby quilt. So I grabbed more of those Hungry Palette scraps and pieced this little strip of color on the back. I kept thinking of it as a little ray of sunshine; my tribute to the Island Baby’s home, Hawaii.

Here is a little more detail of the back. If you click on the photo, you can see the fabric in better detail. You’ll also have a better view of the imperfections on the woodgrain quilting. That doesn’t bother me, though. And I know it won’t bother the baby! It just makes it look more homemade. That’s sort of the point, right?

I hope Island Auntie and Uncle like the quilt as much as I do. I had so much fun thinking about about them and their little girl-to-be as I was making it.