Aurifil Artisan

I guess first of all I need a topic, and I chose Eddie the Crow who resides on our Balcony.

He’s part of the family, and with his partner, he’s been with us for around five years.
He talks to me and gets as excited as a puppy when I return home from a long trip. If I take a snooze, he will sit by the window and watch me until I wake. It’s rather lovely.

I design in many different genres. sometimes it’s realistic images and sometimes whimsical.
However, I decided to use a method called foundation piecing for this quilt.

In patchwork, foundation piecing has initially been a method used to stabilize pieces of fabric that are stitched together. It first became popular in the 18th and 19th centuries in England, although a 15th-century Italian piece, the Impruneta cushion owned by Antonio degli Agli, may have used foundation piecing.
A similar process popular in Britain is English paper piecing.

Foundation piecing is not my favourite way to create a block, but it is a very accurate way of placing pieces of fabric in a pattern to create an image.

First of all, I drew a small image of a crow made up of pieces of fabric and then I used a computer program to design it. During that time, I was updating and adding new systems to my computers, and I designed several designs and then lost them when I had to update the programs.

Darn it. So I left it for a while, but I always had the idea in the back of my mind.

In the computer program, it allows you to draw the blocks and then print it out onto paper to create the foundation piece. I created two designs and then promptly lost them, as I explained above.
Eventually I drew a new block. I can print it out and stitch all of the blocks following the pattern.

I like to make up a few blocks and create them as small quilt so that I can get an idea of the colour and balance.

I added the applique tail in this one, as well as applique on the feet. A little hand stitching on his head and tail.

Once I’m happy with the blocks I can work out how I would like the quilt to look.

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I still like to add more interest to the blocks, so once I have block constructed, I scan it and put it into my iPad and then add anything else that takes my fancy.

Then to create the final block. I decided to add the tail outside the sashing so that it gives an different dimension.

Here we are the final quilt.

I write the pattern as I create the block and then finalise it when the quilt is made.

So that’s the way it goes folks.

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I used Aurifil 50 weight for the entire quilt, piecing and quilting, but the hand stitching on the crow is done in 12 weight Aurifil.

You can buy the pattern online in the shop in my Web page.