QUILTS & FABRIC: PAST & PRESENT


Sunday, December 13, 2015

Barkley's Birds: Fat Quarters

The bird feeders are up and running.
It's indeed Fat Quarters around here.



Quite a few birds check in every day.
Neighbor Barkley spends his winter barking at them through the window...

Barkley's Birds, 68" x 84"
by Deb Rowden

A seasonal event Deb commemorated in a quilt.

Barkley's Birds is great for a project combining two current lines of Moda fabric. On the left Collections for a Cause: Nurture and on the right Alice's Scrapbag

Together you get a range of lights and darks. The scrappy blocks would be perfect for a dozen fat quarters from each line.

Alice's Scrapbag
Collections for a Cause: Nurture

A sketch of Barkley's Birds in the new fabrics.

8" Finished Block.
Birds in the Air
All the blocks are shaded the same. They are rotated in the set.

Karla Menaugh, Deb Rowden and I published the pattern for Barkley's Birds in our out-of-print book Cranberry Collection from the Sunflower Pattern Co-operative. The pattern called for 12 fat quarters of dark and 12 fat quarters of light for the pieced blocks. See this post for the applique quilts in the book:


Karla did the pattern for this quilt and she had you cut your fat quarters efficiently. You need 48 blocks and this gives you a pair of darks or lights per fat quarter.

From each fat quarter, cut two 6-7/8" squares and 14 squares 2-7/8".  


Cut these squares in half diagonally for the large and small half-square triangles for each pieced block. 


Use the leftover rectangle at the bottom right for birds and leaves in the applique border. You can find the border pattern in the book (see it at my Etsy store below.)

The border is cut 10-1/2" wide from 2 yards of fabric.

You might want to border your version with the bird chintz print
from the Nurture line.

Cut side borders 10-1/2" x 64-1/2".
Cut top and bottom borders 10-1/2" x  68-1/2".

Cranberry Collection is out of print but we still have copies for sale in my Etsy shop. We'll sign them just for you.


4 comments:

  1. Dear Ms Brackman,
    I come here on a regular basis to read the stories and marvel at the exquisite pictures and patterns and colours. I became a quilter only recently, thanks to two years living in the US (I'm french) and a book that talked about quilting. And then I discovered your work, and books, and blogs, and the enormous and amazing work you do on quilt History, and also on women History. So today I thought I should finally leave a comment to say : thank you. Thank you for the beauty of the fabrics and patterns and the stories that come with them. Thank you for your impressive work and for the knowledge that you share on your blogs. You really are an inspiration.
    Sincerely,
    Christine

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  2. Great design, I assume that is Barkley and he's a doll. I know he's a dog but he's cute and I can just see him barking away at the birds.

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