Someone to Watch Over You

This sweet bird pattern is from Last Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts. For the first "trial" quilt above, I chose affordable JoAnn's fabric in brown leaves and sage lace. I decided to quilt by machine instead of by hand. Being the second quilt I've ever completed, I discovered:

1. fusible web applique is difficult to hide on all the edges. Once webbing is sewn on the fabric and turned right side out, it's best to baste the webbing where it was cut to help keep it from sneaking out behind the fabric.
2. a walking foot is necessary for quilting. When quilting the background, the fabric bunched around the applique and I had to leave a wide area unstitched to avoid bunching.
3. scalloped binding is pretty, but is a tedious task. Using the scallop stitch on my machine, I hand turned and ironed each curve in place, then straight-stitched on top to secure the scallops. The scallops made the first quilt pretty, but I won't try that again soon.

The second time I made this quilt, I used Joel Dewberry Aviary fabric. The background fabric has tan birds on branches and the fabric for the tree and birds is an orange woodgrain.

This time around, I carefully cut and basted my fusible web and painstakingly hid all my applique hand stitching. I used my new walking foot to satisfying results. I'm finally confident with the double-fold binding process and my corners are now falling into place like they should. Here's a few close-ups: