coffee birds

Every year when I get my tax return, I try to put most of the money into savings, but spend a little of it on something fun. This year, I ordered some tomato plants from a local nursery (to arrive early next month, I can't wait!), a few books on gardening and quilting, and some fun fabric from the Fabric Shack. One fabric that caught my fancy for reason I can't fully explain is these cheerful little coffee birds. I don't drink coffee, but there was something about the lovely blue background, the bright birds, and the coffee beans that just made me smile. I like them even better in person. After ironing and putting the fabric away, I kept thinking about it, and eventually felt inspired to design a quilt around it.


In addition to the blue in the background, the birds contains lime green, orange and red, so I chose those four colors to use in a courthouse steps pattern.


Here is my original design sketch:
Some of the blue, green, orange and red fabrics I pulled together:
I cut 5" squares of the coffee birds fabric, and then 2.5" strips of the others. I cut 5", 9", and 13" lengths of the orange and green, and 9", 13" and 17" strips of the red and blue. One of the resulting squares:Here are the 16 squares (17" each) laid out on the floor:It's definitely different from most of the things I've done before, but I like it. I'm finding that one of the really nice things about quilting is how quickly a project can come together. It took several days of sketching and two different versions to come up with a layout I liked, but once I started getting fabric out, it was just two days before I had all the pieces cut and sewed into squares. I'm hoping the quilt top (and perhaps even the quilt sandwich!) will come together next weekend.

Here's to the joy and excitement of new projects!
~Phosphorelated