A Fairly Safe Landing in the middle of "Texas Wildflowers and Birdies --- A Sure Sign of Spring"

(Sorry I had to withdraw my last attempt at a post.  I failed to insert the pictures; then life got in the way a few days.   I had 13 "old" classmates here on Tuesday for Veggie Soup and cornbread, and a visit with one of our gang who came from Mississippi for a visit.   We had a great time together!)

Back on March 21, I posted a peek at my first wildflower quilt block, and three more times I've shown progress pictures.  However, I haven't really told you much about it.  Well, it is finally finished now, so I guess I should tell you about the process of how it came to be.

I first saw a quilt made by the same pattern in November, 2014, at a nearby quilt show and fell in love with it.  That quilter used the same fabrics I've used, and she named her quilt "7 Wonder Whacky Quilt"; that's all; nothing more.  Her quilt really was beautiful, and hand quilted!  I knew immediately I had to have that pattern; I had purchased some of the same fabrics months before but didn't know what I would do with them until I saw that quilt!  A Google search revealed that the pattern was designed in Alaska by Jane Seesz and Trish Magee, and could be purchased at www.quiltalaska.com , so I ordered it.  You will recall that I made a patriotic table topper by the pattern, which I bought back from the church auction recently.

Now back to the other lady's wildflower quilt.  I knew I couldn't hand quilt mine, but I knew I could make an improvement in mine; her quilt had flowers and birds upside down and sideways; I didn't like that; otherwise I loved hers.  The pattern is basically a stack-and-whack for six of the fabrics, but the bird fabric had to be fussy cut for sure (lots of waste, but oh well......!).  I studied the pattern and my fabrics.   The pattern made size suggestions, but there were no individual pattern pieces; there was only a small 1.5" square marked into seven sections.  I had to enlarge that picture on my copier several times to get the block size to a 12" square.  I was frankly disappointed in that aspect of the pattern, but through persistence, I got it done!  I finally got gutsy and stacked up the six wildflower fabrics, all going the same direction.  Then I laid the enlarged pattern on the fabric stack and cut all six fabrics in the stack into the seven pieces.  Of course, I then had to fussy cut all seven pieces individually from the bird fabric.  All that gave me enough pieces to make seven complete blocks, with all six floral fabrics plus a bird in each block.  That's the first time I've ever tackled anything like that, but by golly, every piece would go together in the upright direction.   (Don't you just love working with directional fabrics?????!!)

Next I had to figure out a scheme to get the black strips between all seven pieces.  Once I got the plan down, it went quickly for all seven blocks.

Next problem encountered:  Now I had only seven blocks, and I wanted a full-size bed quilt.  The picture (and very brief instructions) that came with the pattern  suggested making more blocks with a different look for the same seven pieces by turning the pattern a quarter turn before cutting.  No problem, right?  Except that I wanted to be sure that all those blocks still had everything also upright.  I finally got my mind settled and managed to cut three more sets of seven blocks, with all flowers and birds upright!  Yea!!!  

 I should have stopped the quilt at four blocks wide by six blocks long, but no, I was determined to use all 28 blocks, so now I have a long quilt with no borders!   The pattern suggested making more blocks, and cutting them into thirds, disposing of the center cut, and using the two outsides for the borders.  I didn't like that idea at all, so I  had to come up with something to make the quilt wide enough to hang down on the sides of the bed, but it certainly didn't need to be made any longer!

I had so much time involved in figuring out this thing that I figured a bit more time wouldn't matter.  That's when I came up with the idea for the borders.  The construction really was not difficult, but stitching near the ditch around all those blocks was very time consuming; I did finally figure out how to do it fairly easily.  Then I decided to use only one row of those border blocks at the top and bottom.

I decided to just grab a ruler and Frixion pen and mark all the seven-piece blocks with straight lines radiating out from one point of different sides in each section.  I was careful to avoid stitching through the middle of the birdies!   Also I used  varigated thread on both the top and bobbin, so sometime the stitching shows up more than others, on both the top and the back.  As I finished the quilting, I told a friend this would have been a perfect quilt for me to try some swirly free motion because my mistakes would have hardly shown, but actually, I'm fairly pleased with the quilting for the most part anyway

If you are still here after reading all that hoopla, you now understand my meaning of "flying by the seat of my pants"!  I would never be able to "truly plan and write out" a pattern plan like so many of you do, but I think I made a fairly safe landing in the middle of my "Texas Wildflowers and Birdies --- A Sure Sign of Spring".  It is 99.5" x 86".

Double click to see quilting better; not perfect, but I can live with it!

Speaking of Spring --- Spring has been really strange here in Texas.  We've seen the sun very little, at least where I live. We had snow in March and I think 12 days with no sun then.  Rain has been forecast for seven days straight, all of the past four weeks, and rain has come almost every day of every week this month of May!.  I'm sure you've seen all the flooding all of Texas literally.  All rivers lakes are full and overflowing!  New all time records have been set!  The Trinity and Brazos Rivers are way up on the levees above flood stage, and yet more rain is forecast today!  Four and one-tenth inches fell in my rain gauge last night!  We needed rain for sure, but now we need a break.  One town nearby changed their "lane closure signs" to read, "If you've been praying for rain, please Stop!"   It truly is getting serious.  Lives have been lost in the raging waters and hundred of homes destroyed, all over the State!   I'm ready for a rainbow and some sunshine!

Meanwhile, I've been playing a little more with those patriotic diversion blocks I showed last time.  Hopefully will have something to show on that soon maybe.

Stay safe, everyone, or as we are saying in Texas, "Turn Around; Don't Drown!"

(Sorry this is so long!)

---"Love"