Animal Quilt Challenge Completed - Psalm 124: 6,7

Oh Blessed be God, We've flown free of their fangs, free of their traps, free as a bird. 

Their grip is broken.  We're free as a bird in flight.

I'm so please to finish this Fast Friday Fabric Challenge.  The challenge was to make some kind of animal - including human and to use some kind of dimensional technique such as stuffed applique, cut away  etc.  When I read the challenge early Friday morning, I groaned out loud.  I mean, like, I've never done an animal quilt (if you don't count baby quilts) in all my life.  So I had no idea where to start.  All day, while I was at school, my mind was thinking on the subject matter.  Finally, in the end, I thought  I would just settle on a body part of a person.  I've always wanted to explore that subject.

Then I started looking at all my inspiration books and caught a picture of an art deco bird.    That was it!  I started sketching - putting in lines and taking out lines.  I really love art deco and this love bird had really caught my attention.  That said, my finish design was really complicated and the final quilt would be a major project.  Since the idea of the challenge is to complete the project in a week, that would not  do.  So I pared down the sketch and made it a study of a future project.  This literally is only half the design.

I decided to try to challenge myself to work with only commercial cottons.  I liked the shape of my last challenge decided to use that.  It fit the bird theme and I liked the irregular shapes.  To give the piece dimension, I quilted the base, then added the bird on top - making the bird's body puffy without being stuffed. His wings were double fused to a base fabric and cut out  - only be anchored to the piece by the tips.  They are quite stiff and you can bend them in any direction you want.

I'm happy with the piece and I'll be sure to put this kind of thing on my list of things to do.  It is 22" by 8" and took about  10 hours to complete (including the original design work).