While working at Pine Street Quilts, I stared at the fabric with the cardinals and decided I needed (wanted) a piece of it for a wall hanging. Ken feeds the birds outside of my sewing room window and the male and female cardinals have been showing up and I thought a cardinal quilt was timely for the season. I gravitate toward florals but told myself that florals/girlie prints and winter do not go together and I chose wintery, outdoorsy and woodsy themed fabrics. My pattern is a free download from Blank Quilting called "Duquesa" which I tweeked a bit. I love this pattern-when it is in its original size from the pattern it has a 4' x8" flying geese block. This one is a 3" x 6" block and I have also done a mini 2" x 4" block. The math is pretty basic to convert the pattern smaller!! I used a piece of hand "rusted" fabric from my art quilt friend Pat Bishop from Appleton in the center area under the red silk leaves. She was at quilt retreat and warned me that it will be hard to quilt because it was such a heavy weight fabric. She was right and I had to do a minimal amount of quilting in that area. I usually add bling to my work but since this represents winter and the outdoors it didn't seem appropriate so I added a few silk leaves and in the close up photo I show the cardinal button I added to the center of the quilt. I tend to select bright colors and when chosing fabric for this quilt I found I was lacking in golds and rust tones but I made it work (Tim Gunn!!) and was able to pull fabrics from my stash to complete this quilt.
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