A finished 'Bird' quilt

It seems a long time since I blogged but it has been a busy month. First we had family staying and then I managed to lift a full washing basket awkwardly the result of which is that I now have sciatica. Very nasty and I can now sympathise profusely with all who suffer.
However, I have managed to fit in some sewing and have finished the little quilt that I made using the bird fabric.

I layered it up with some cotton batting and a pretty, lilac floral fabic on the back and then machine ditch quilted down the panels. This was to stabilise it as I knew that I did not want to hand quilt heavily.

I then enlarged some of the little birds from the patterned fabric, made templates from them and used them as quilting designs on the plain fabrics.

I then quilted through the middle of all the branches on the patterned fabric and carried these lines onto the plain fabrics and around the birds.

It's great to have this project completed and stored away.

The Celebrate Hand Quilting facebook group is a wonderful forum for handquilters - very friendly and full of good advice. During a recent discussion about thimbles it was suggested that a Kai No Kuchi would make a good thimble holder. Intrigued, I followed the link http://revolutionarycake.blogspot.fr/2012_11_01_archive.html to find out what these were. Well of course, I then had to make one and here is the result.

The little container measures 3 1/2" from tip to tip. I am very pleased with my first effort. The little clips which are by Clover were invaluable for holding things together as I stitched and the container makes the perfect home for them!

Both the bird fabric and the Clover clips were my Blog Hop wins from Sherry. Thank you very much Sherry - you were right, I have 'fallen in love with those clips'!

I have a few more things to show you but it will have to wait for another day.

Happy stitching!

Lin