Happy June! Here’s your new monthly wallpaper for computers and phones and other devices!
I’m still really excited about the new Backyard Birds quilt pattern, so I thought I’d share the drawing that started it all.
In 2020 I finished the 100 Day Project for the first time. I broke the project up into ten mini-projects – each with its own theme. One of the last themes I did was Birds, and as I was drawing my second bird (this goldfinch) I started to wonder about the possibility of creating a set of templates that could be used to create almost any songbird. I played with the idea for ten days and decided it WAS possible! This year I finally made that happen, testing out a new pattern by creating over 100 different birds from one set of mix & match templates. That was my 100 Day Project for 2021!
Download your wallpaper for computers, phones, or tablets below. You can get it both with and without the June calendar, in case you want to keep that pretty goldfinch on your screens during other months of the year. 🙂
All of my quilt patterns are really just starting places. I design everything based on a 10-inch square grid, so that you can mix and match individual block patterns however you like.
Even if you buy one of my multi-block patterns or bundles, the layout I use for my samples is just one way to put your block together. I may show the Lovable Mutts laid out in a simple grid, but you might want to add half blocks full of barks and yips and howls and woofs. Go for it!
If you purchase your own collection of individual block patterns, or decide to use a different layout than the sample I made for a pattern, you lose the handy materials list, cutting instructions, and assembly guide for all the different quilt sizes I show in my samples.
That’s where these guides come in!
There’s no reason for every individual to have to calculate all the math for all the different quilt sizes and layouts. I can do that once and then share it for everyone!
Each of the guides below is a downloadable PDF for one layout style. It includes all the following information for six different quilt sizes, from Itty Bitty Baby to King size.
fabric requirements
cutting instructions for background blocks, backing, and binding
quilt assembly diagram
backing assembly diagram (where any piecing is needed)
links to tutorials for quilt assembly and finishing
All fabric requirements are based on 40-inch wide fabric.
Pick Your Layout
If you need more info about what the different layouts look like, you can see lots of examples of each layout style in this post – Play with Your Layouts.
Choose your layout and click on the link below to download your PDF.
In time for Father’s Day next month – a Papa and Baby Emperor Penguin applique pattern!
Yep, the 15th of the month means it’s pattern release day in the Funny Faces Quilt Block of the Month Club!
We have a vote last month in the club to see what the next block of the month pattern will be – and this month the penguin pair were the winners – just barely edging out the dragonfly.
I can’t wait to see all the penguins you make! (Penguins are antarctic, rather than arctic – but they’d be a fun addition to all the cold-loving critters in the Arctic Chill quilt pattern.)
I’ve been making sample blocks for this quilt pattern for months now. This one was a doozy!
I’ve been getting a lot of questions from people who are starting to shop for fabric for their Backyard Birds quilts – wanting to know if there’s a list they can shop with.
Yes! Sort of. 🙂
Fabric Shopping List for the Backyard Birds Quilt Pattern
Please understand that this is by no means a definitive list! It really depends on what birds YOU want to make. I’m making sample blocks (and including instructions for) 100 birds, but there are THOUSANDS of bird species out there – and when you consider the fact that male and females of the same species often look very different. . . well, that’s a lot of variation.
I’ve designed the templates to be mix and matchable – so you can use them to go way beyond the 100 samples I made. That means you’ll probably also go way beyond the fabrics I used. BUT! I can give you some guidelines to create a really useful stash to start with. Just be aware that you may need to go searching for just the right fabric for some of the birds in your quilt.
Before I go into specific colors and patterns, I want to include just a couple of the “rules” I used for my sample blocks. I often decide on rules for a quilt before I choose fabrics. It helps me keep a cohesive look to a jumble of different blocks. For my bird samples, the only solid I used was solid black for the eyes. ALL the other fabrics are prints or batiks. I did this because even the smoothest-looking birds have some variation/texture in their feathers. So I used batiks for the very smooth, uniform-looking birds (less common) and other prints for the rest (more common).
I recommend choosing one color palette for your background blocks, but I’ll have more info about that (and lots of sample photos) at the end of this post.
Solid-ish Neutrals
Not surprisingly, you’re going to need a lot of neutral fabrics. A LOT of backyard birds are colored to blend in with their backgrounds. The Animal Kingdom color collection is a great starting point. That contains multiple shades of grey (ranging from almost white to black), multiple shades of brown (again ranging from very light to very dark), a rusty brown and a golden color. Each of those colors is available in multiple prints, so you can find lots of variety there. You’ll definitely want more variety in the browns and greys – I often liked to use different prints of the same shade to get some contrast between different parts, like you see in this yellowthroat.
The wings, tail, and back of the bird are the same brown – but I used different prints to help create definition.
If that large collection is a bit much, you can shop by color here.
Here are some links to the colors you’ll use the most. . .
All of these that I’m talking about here are the tone-on-tone prints that read as solids.
Printed Neutrals
Now we’re talking stripes and spots. You actually don’t need many of these fabrics – but what you need is pretty specific. Here’s a list of the most common prints I used.
streaky brown – cream or tan with darker brown streaks or stripes
cream or tan with darker brown spots
brown with cream speckles
a darker brown and a lighter brown dappled print (all-over florals can work here)
brown stripes – medium brown with darker brown or black stripes
grey with black stripes
Of course, this is not comprehensive – but it’s a good start.
Black and White
You’re going to want some black and white prints.
wide black and white stripe – very useful for birds with black and white heads
white with black spots
white with black speckles
narrower black and white stripes (mainly for woodpeckers)
black and white check (also mainly for woodpeckers)
Blue. Lots of birds have some very bright blue. Get a couple of prints in the same rich shade for the definition I talked about in the neutrals section. The darker shades of these Blueberry blenders work well for iridescent and blue-black birds.
Red. Most red birds tend to be orangey red rather than blue-ish reds, so keep that in mind as you shop. These blenders are true red, and these have a touch of orange.
Pink. We have a lot of pink and pinkish-purple birds here on the east coast. You’ll find a pink with grey undertones (or even grey streaks) pretty useful, and also a bright mulberry shade for several finches.
Greens. Surprisingly, there aren’t a lot of green birds here in the US. You’d think that would be good camouflage. You might want to decide on your birds before you shop for greens, because you could need anything from emerald to olive.
Orange and dark purple. Again – these don’t come up as often, so maybe shop as needed.
Background Blocks
The fabrics you choose for your background blocks can affect the whole mood of your quilt.
For my quilt I chose realistic colors for all the birds, and I played around with several different background palettes using my fabric bundles. I recommend choosing either solids or batiks for your background blocks – but don’t mix them. Besides thinking about the overall look you like, think about the quilting here. Quilting will really show on solids, and will be almost invisible on batiks.
Here are the background palettes I’ve already experimented with.
These bright batiks will give you very vivid background blocks with nearly invisible quilting. The background fabrics are as vivid as some of the most colorful backyard birds!
The neutral batiks will give you a more subtle, forest-floor background. The colorful backyard birds really pop against these neutral fabrics, but when you’re putting a brown bird on a brown block (or a grey bird on a grey block) you’ll need to be sure to get good light/dark contrast.
The solid background blocks in basic rainbow colors. Bright and cheerful.
These are also solid backgrounds, but in a more grown-up rainbow. The colors are still intense, but a little more muted. The yellow is mustard rather than sunshine. There are also some neutrals (brown and a grey) in the mix.
More solids, but this time in soft baby colors. The birds really pop against those pale pastels.
A different kind of rainbow solids. The colors are still bright, but they have a chalkier look. This collection also includes a brown and a grey.
I also love this batch using shades of solid gray.
Green batiks can give you a very realistic background foliage kind of look.
Blue batiks would also work also really well – suggesting the sky.
Whew! That’s a lot of information! I hope it helps you shop for fabrics for your Backyard Birds quilt. Get the pattern here!
Happy April! Here’s your new monthly background image for phones and other devices!
We had a super warm March – and last night a cold front blew in. My bird bath was frozen this morning! I guess Mother Nature is sending us an April Fools joke. 😁
I chose a giraffe this month for no reason except that I think she’s super cute. And I was in the mood for fanciful colors, so she’s a green giraffe.
Download your background image for phones, tablets or computers below. You can get it both with and without the April calendar, in case you want to keep that sweet giraffe on your screens during other months of the year. 🙂
Yep, the 15th of the month means it’s pattern release day in the Funny Faces Quilt Block of the Month Club!
The new pattern this month is a bunny.
But not just any bunny.
See those four bunnies? They were all made with the same pattern pieces!
The pattern includes one head, one body, one muzzle, and two ears – but it has four different eye/eyebrow sets and four different mouths. By twisting and turning the applique pieces and swapping out the eyebrows and mouth – you can create a kajillion different bunnies.
That’s right – your applique blocks can multiply like rabbits. 🙂
For the last few years I’ve participated in the 100 Day Project. Last year was the first year I actually finished it. 🙂
The 100 Day project is awesome. Participants decide on any creative activity they want to pursue for 100 days. It can be ANYTHING! A few that I remember off the top of my head are a jeweler who made 100 pairs of earrings, a potter who came up with 100 different handles, a baker who made 100 different pies, and an artist who designed 100 different alphabet fonts – the sky’s the limit!
Last year I designed a different repeat pattern every day – AND I used that pattern to mock-up a new applique design. Here’s just one example.
I hoped to have a fabric collection come out of it, but I got something else instead. SO MANY QUILT BLOCK IDEAS!
I love how it turned out – but it was relatively easy. Just design all the blocks, make a sample, record the video tutorials, and write the pattern!
But one of the ideas that the project sparked last year was a Mix & Match Backyard Birds pattern. As I was drawing some of the birds I see at my feeder, I realized that a lot of the basic parts are pretty much the same. I wondered if I could create some basic templates that could be used to applique just about any of those classic feeder birds. I noodled around with the idea for ten of my hundred days, and it seemed like it would work!
I’ve taken the months since then to draw up a bunch of templates and now I’m finally ready to test them – just in time for a new 100 Day Project!
The new tests won’t be mock-ups. They’re actually appliqued blocks that I’ll be able to join into a quilt. So exciting!
Here’s Day 1 – a black-capped chickadee, one of my favorite birds.
Will I be able to make 100 different recognizable birds using just a few pages of templates? We’re about to find out. 🙂
You can follow along with my progress on Instagram. And the applique pattern will be available at the end of the project – maybe even sooner if the testing goes smoothly and I don’t need to design too many additional templates. 🙂
Update! The project is finished and you can find the pattern here!
Want to join in the 100 Day Project? There’s more info here.
If you’e using an electric cutting machine like a Cricut. . .
Upload the file to your machine.
Resize if needed. (To fit a block that finishes at 10 inches square, the image should be 15 inches wide.)
Ungroup the pieces and assign colors
Cut.
Step 2
Trace or print the pattern onto the paper side of the fusible adhesive.
I use Heat & Bond Lite for all my quilts, and I love their printable sheets because I’m lazy and hate to trace. 🙂
The image has already been reversed, so just trace or print. If you’re tracing, be sure to trace the eyes and (optional) eyelashes too. You’ll need those for Step 5.
Step 3
Roughly cut around each shape and fuse it to the back of your fabric.
Here’s a video showing those first two steps. . .
Step 4
Cut around each piece neatly.
This time you’re cutting directly on the solid lines.
This video has more info about that step.
Step 5
Remember back in Step 2 when I told you to make sure you traced the eyes and eyelashes? Now you’re going to use that. Hold the face up to a window so the light shines through it. You’ll be able to see all the dotted lines, and the adhesive will stabilize the fabric so you can trace on it without it crinkling up.
Trace the lines to show where the eyes go. If your cookie will have eyelashes, trace those too.
Here’s a video with more info about this step.
Step 6
If you’re doing Quilt As You Go (I did) then you can quilt your block before adding the applique. So easy!
Cut your background fabric and a piece of 100% cotton batting 11 inches square.
Layer the block with a piece of 100% cotton batting. Quilt any pattern you like!
Have fun! And share a photo of what you make! You can share it in the Shiny Happy People group or tag it with #shinyhappyworld on Instagram.
If you like this free pattern, sign up for the Shiny Happy News! Subscribers get a weekly newsletter full of sewing tips and tricks, free patterns, special discounts, and other things to make you smile. 🙂
