Birds of a Feather

Birds of a Feather in progress

I'm not sure you can even see WHY I chose to call this yummy specimen "Birds of a feather"...but I will explain it to you.  There's a story to this one...

The Turquoise fabric in the center of the quilt is Amy Butler's Belle Royal Garden, and on it there are extravagant peacock looking birds, flowers, and buildings... It really is something to behold, and it took me longer than it should have to take a cutter to it because I just kept looking at it and smiling like a dork. (perhaps while drooling and saying "Ooooo...soooo preeety...")

I purchased said Amy Butler fabric (I may or may not have a slight Amy Butler crush) from a dear soul on Etsy - just doing my part to help the other creatives out there like myself...I would give you the link to her shop, but it seems she is no longer selling...

ANYWAY, I wanted the Amy Butler fabric, and then I wanted a coordinating green fabric to go with it to create this quilt. So I also purchased a green that LOOKED like it would coordinate nicely on my computer...but when I received them in the mail, they did not, in fact, go together at all.  The green in the Amy Butler fabric is a two-toned olive-ey green that is really hard to describe.  The stuff I purchased was lime green with sunglasses on it.  HA!

GUESS WHAT?  I had the PERFECT green in my stash!  WOOT!! It contains both the greens in the Amy Butler fabric AND it looks like feathers.  Or palm fronds.  OR FEATHERS!  I cannot tell you what line the fabric is from, as I received it in a fabric swap from someone who apparently had big plans for it and the rest of the fabrics in the line, and then didn't do anything beyond cutting and sorting.

And that's not all, folks.  I had a gift card for Jo-Anne's that I intended to use to purchase the border fabric.  Because, you know, I certainly don't have any fabric in my studio!  Pshht!  I knew I wanted a light blue to bring out the light blue in the fabric.  I actually had the color in my stash but not enough.  SO, I was ALL ORGANIZED and had some extra blocks to take with me to match this fabric.  I mean, you don't want to end up with fabric that doesn't match, right?  TRAGEDY.  So my husband and I set off sans children to pick up some fabric.  As we pulled into the parking lot, I realized that I set down the blocks...and left them on my kitchen table!  I was flying blind.  DRAT!  I really said drat too.  Because I say silly things like that.

I went back and forth several times about whether I should just save the buying for another day, but I was already there...blah, blah, blah... 

Do you SEE those borders?  The picture does not do them justice.  They both have metallics in them!!  The light blue has little silver swirlies and the navy has metallic silver dots.  (I also may or may not have a slight obsession with dots).  DIDN'T EVEN DO THAT ON PURPOSE! When I bought them, I was 99.9% sure they would work, but told myself that I loved them both enough that if they did NOT work, I would use them for SOMETHING.  In fact, I bought the rest of the bolt of the light blue fabric and will definitely be using that elsewhere.

Birds of a Feather

So I have the borders on here.  The top is DONE.  Next week I will decide how I am going to quilt it and whether that requires me to mark it (doubtful because I KISS), or wing it...sandwich and go.  Should be done soon.  Then I will photograph her and list her in my shop.  Come visit me there at

Lydia's Purple Cloth.  I have one listed that is the same block pattern but different fabrics...but you can only look at it because it's reserved for someone else...But still.  

Okay, enough rambling for me now.  Hope you enjoyed my gawd-awful photography.  If you REALLY want to appreciate Amy Butler fabric, you should go to her design site.  She has great stuff there.  She truly speaks my language.

Peace to you!