Little Bits.....: In the midst

of working on a jelly roll quilt ~~ #2 of 2 from the same jelly roll ~~ Karl called me upstairs. “Get here fast.” So I ran up without my camera and looked onto the back porch.
Now wasn’t this worth the run.

I borrowed Karl’s camera and snapped a few shots but not being familiar with it, I then ran back down the stairs, up the stairs, out the door and found her majesty (don’t tell Misty I called her that,ok.) in our shed. She was a lovely little pigeon. I had already done the treadmill for the day. Not sure as I needed more exercise.
I then went back down and finished up what I was working on. As I said quilt #2 of 2. A couple of things I have found that work well I actually remembered to take photos of for you.
When tracing a pattern onto fusible web, sometimes I just trace around the piece. I have copied it onto stock card to give it an edge so the pencil has something to rest against.

I trim to within a 1/2” of the tracings and then fuse to the fabric. Extra bits go back in the box……frugal, very frugal.
I use Steam A Seam as I’ve told you many, many times. I like it because it doesn’t gum up my needle like some other brands and I can put it on the fabric, step back and it doesn’t fall to the floor.

Yup, right about there will be perfect!
I fused it in place and then took it to the sewing machine and stitched it all down. I did a straight stitch on the antennae and a blanket stitch around the wings.

This will never be a favourite line of fabric for me. I love most things about it, but those dots and that chevron………not cutting it.
I found a way to help take the eye away from those two. I added the brightest fabric I could find to the border. Now my eye travels to the binding and not to those fabrics. Binding isn’t just for finishing off the edges of a quilt. It can make or break a quilt IMHO. Binding can flow with the borders, it can stop the eye wanting to travel beyond the quilt or it can draw the eye to the edge. I wanted to draw the eye to the edge. You can audition bindings on your flannel wall but remember to only have show as much or as little as you would have when finished.