Buggy Barn Bird Brain

If you haven't done a Buggy Barn quilt-it is a trip.  Seams don't match and you need to be OK with that.
The first one I did was for my sister-in-law who is a cat lover and rescuer.  The original had wool and rick rack for the whiskers.  I did cotton fabric freezer paper applique and stitched the whiskers-just don't like rick rack!

Cattitudes 2012

 This was not a planned class-I saw the quilt at the local shop and several of my friends were taking it so I just jumped in.  I probably need to stop doing that as it keeps me from the quilts I really want to do. 

I will not be using rick rack as stems-don't know what I will be using but it won't be rick rack

I chose red-orange, grays/blacks, yellow, yellow green, and turquoise and about 1/2 are batiks so it will hopefully more whimsical than primitive-we'll see:)

Pat asked me in the Bird Brain class if the pieces could be production line pieced and my response was "no" but today as I was looking at the large box of pieces I thought I would try it.

Traditionally Buggy Barn patterns are put together block by block, piecing together all the pieces in the top layer of the 20 layer stack.  That means you have to store a 24x20 inch stack of fabrics somewhere safe until they are all sewn together.  I pinned each paper pattern piece to each stack of fabrics so I can work with an alpha group at a time.

I took one section at a time and sewed it together in number order

Adding a leader before the first piece helped identify the ends of the pieces

The leaders and enders end up as blocks on their own and a lot of thread is saved

Iron and stack pieces from last piece stitched to first (that is where the leader comes in handy)

just have the bottom to sew on

Last two to iron and stack

I finished two sections  in a relatively short period of time.  This way I can just pull one section at a time to sew-less thinking will make it go faster.   I will be preparing for the Exploring Color Class on Tuesday at Paradise Sewing.  Ten students.  It is a lot of work but I truly love teaching and am getting better at it:)  Adults are really a little harder than 10th graders-they aren't afraid to voice their opinions so you really need to have your ducks in a row.