glen campbell blog: Sunflower Quilt.......has Chickens

Back in February I posted this Sunflower Quilt......in Progress, with promises to let you know when I added the chickens to the bottom of the quilt...

Click Images to Enlarge:

The Sunflower quilt measures 100 inches square. In this photo the bottom 18 inches are laying on the floor. The tallest sunflower is nearly 7 feet tall.

This is a close up view of some of the sunflower heads. The flowers, stems and leaves are all batik fabrics. The background fabrics are mostly sunflower fabrics cut into random size strips and sewn into 8 inch blocks.

Today I added 4 chickens to the bottom of the quilt. The top 18 inches of the quilt is folded back, so you can't see it. I started by fusing down blades of grass, fusing the chickens over the top of them........then added a lot more grass in front of the chickens. If you click this image you can enlarge it and see the detail better.

Adding the chickens and the grass was fun. The chickens are cut from commercial fabric that was in my stash. The grass was cut free-hand.

The first question I always get is.........do you have to applique around each and every blade of grass.........the answer is yes.

I put on a great movie that I love....or some relaxing music....put the quilt top under the sewing machine needle.....and applique around each and every fused piece.

I was hoping for a subtle affect here with the chickens. I don't want them to jump out immediately when you look at the quilt........I want you to see the quilt as a whole, pause and look at the gorgeous sunflowers........and eventually say.........oh, look down there.....there's chickens!

I will spend the rest of the week tweaking on this.......adding more blades of grass, a couple more sunflowers, and a lot more leaves on the sunflower stems. I think the tweaking part is my favorite.........adding a little of this, a little of that, designing as I go........until it looks just right.