Open Jar SONG | Birdsong

At first when I saw the new Open Jar prompt, SONG, I thought, oh dear, been there, done that. I was thinking that I'd kind of recently made a quilt inspired by a song - Surrounds for the Seattle MQG "I Heard It on the Radio" Challenge/Exhibit. But in his prompt intro post, Bob @rjbosscher mentioned the birds feeding and singing outside his window. And that mention clicked with me. As a relatively new owner of a Bird Buddy smart bird feeder, I've honestly been a little obsessed with our bird visitors. So I decided to focus this month's Open Jar piece on them.

Here were my first few blocks. I made 'center squares' inspired by each bird. These three blocks were to represent the Dark-Eyed Junco, the Spotted Towhee, and the Black-Capped Chickadee. The blue represents the 'house' of the feeder, and the orange, the perch.

Problem was, I just wasn't settled with my blocks, even though I considered my possible quilt design over several days. So eventually, I knew I had to face it, and a little frustrated, I mentioned to my husband, "I'm not happy with where this is going." He immediately replied, "Well. You could toss it and start over. OR cut it up." Of course. I didn't really want to start over, as I like the bird representations. So I trimmed off the angled bits, and already felt better, arranging the blocks on the design wall.

I never did make more of a plan. I separated the blocks a bit on the design wall, pulled some Kona Acid Lime from the stash closet, and just started piecing things together, deciding what to do next at each new junction.

And after an hour or so, I had a quilt top that I really liked!

I made a pieced quilt back, combining solid scraps with a coordinating print from stash.

For quilting, I used Aurifil 40wt 2810 [Turquoise] to make rows of music staffs all the way down the quilt, with 1" between the groupings. Then I used Aurifil 40wt 5015 [Gold Yellow] to make one large sound wave. For me, those subtle quilted designs helped connect the overall quilt design to the SONG prompt.

To connect with the Acid Lime bits throughout the quilt, I chose to do a thinner than normal binding (cut at 1 3/4") with the Lime. Maybe a bit much, but I love that lime with the background of Kona Oasis. This little quilt finished at 15" x 22", and I gotta say, it was a joy to make.