Cotton and Turkeys and Birds... Oh My....



It's Spring and the temperatures are moderating and the plants are "greening" up.  My pansies are making a great last stand before I have to make way for petunias and geraniums.  Whether you live out in the country (like I do) or in the city limits, birds are also nesting.  The trees are full of nests and if you're a quilter, there's a way you can help our feathered friends and make good use of your quilting scraps. 

All year long, I save all those narrow strips of fabric that you cut off with your rotary cutter when you're cutting out squares or evening the edges of your fabric.  Trim these down to about 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch across and 3 to four inches long.  As soon as the birds start making their nests, bundle them up and loosely tie them together with some twine and hang them on a branch. 

And if you love hummingbirds, you're really in luck.  They tend to gravitate towards the brightly colored fabric. 

Now on to the Southern Album Quilt...

The next square you'll be working on is the  Cotton Boll.  This is the last of the whole cloth applique blocks and has more curves and small pieces than the other ones.  However, I do hope that you have been working on the whole cloth applique blocks all along and haven't waited until the last minute to start them. 

Turkey Tracks in Rice Fields is a challenge.  As usual, piece the block first, do the applique and then complete the embroidery.  This is a great block in one way.  You get practice with the "Y" seams and the way Kristin Steiner and Diane Wilson approach those seams is realtively painless.  There are a couple of more blocks in the quilt where their Y seam technique comes into play, so you'll come away pretty comfortable with this technique.

There are a couple of things you need to keep in mind when constructing this block.  First, disregard the insturctions in the book on E and E Rev.  Instead, cut a 1 1/2 inch strip the width of the fabric and then continue with the instructions in the book where it picks up at "cut a strip of fabric 1 1/2 inch.  Second, when you're marking the dots 1/4 inch away from the endges on B, E, and E Rev pieces, be sure to mark them accurately.  Third, look closely at the stitching directions for joining pieces B, E, and E Rev.  Follow them and you won't have a problem.  Do the same when you dot the corner of all the A pieces of fabric and join them to the B/E//E Rev pieces.

Turkey Tracks in Rice Fields is a challenge, but the results are a beautiful block.  This is not a block you can rush through and you may end up taking it apart a few times before it suits you.