QUILTING BIRDS OF A FEATHER

I finished the quilt top of my Birds of a Feather a few weeks ago.  I talked with several friends in my small group and all agreed I would have to quilt it myself.  Let's face it to take this to a quilter would drive them insane along with me and cost me a fortune as well.  If and when I quilt something myself I usually spray baste.  However, in this case I decided to take it to my quilter and have her baste it on her long arm six inches apart in a grid side to side and top to bottom.   

I spent a good deal of time trying to figure out what thread to use.  My original idea was 28wt Aurifil.  Well, not all their colors come in the small spools and there will be tons of thread color changes.  So I decided on using Mettler cotton 50wt and ran into the same problem.  At last I just decided to go with the Mettler that I had in my thread stash and use Coats and Clark poly along with it, as they have such a wide range of color choices.  

So the quilting begins.  I am finding since the appliqués fill  their backgrounds so heavily that in many of the blocks I will only have to quilt the leaves and other appliqués and not have to do much outside quilting on the background.  

I am using some pretty heavy stitching in the leaves.  I thought I liked this stitch as it stands out well and has little nubs of texture.  
However, I ran into a bit of a problem with it and ended up picking them out.  I found the stitch on the brown leaf actually showed up better and was easier to control the stitch starts and stops.

This is going to take a while.  I am quilting one block at a time.  I am pretty sure with all the appliqués if I don't I will miss something. 

For those of you that are fans of my daughters chickens.  Here are two of the last ten hatched by mother hen.  Look at that fancy hairdo on the black one.  They are standing in a new coop that my 13 years old grandson made for them.  

Since the population explosion of just 4 chickens to 27 there now is a new chicken yard.  Here are some of the new chicks enjoying a larger yard.  My daughter's husband loves her very much, he hired their contractor to build the new yard.  There was a deal struck though, they no longer free roam. He said 4 chickens pooping on the patio was one thing, but 27 was a way too much.   

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