Birdy Quilt Design

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After reviewing everyone’s comments from my post about coming up with a quilt design for the collage fabric I recently acquired, I came up with a design that I really like.  It will allow me to run the bird print across the bottom of the quilt, which I love. I think it grounds the design.

collage bird print

From there, I separated the birds from the rest of the quilt using a 2.5″ solid black strip.  From there, it’s a modified coin style design, using 2.5″ and 4.5″ strips, with the newsprint fabric as the background.

bird-quilt-collage

My plan is that the quilt will look something like this when it’s finished.

bird-quilt-small

Though in the real version, the coin style strips are randomized and use some fabrics from my stash.  I am still trying to decide how big to make the quilt.  It is currently 52″ across (the length of the bird panel), so I planned this design for 52×72″.  The problem I have with that, is that it seems like such an odd size to me.  The best size for hanging a quilt on my wall is 48×72″, which I could easily do because it would simply be making the quilt more narrow.

However, I’m not sure that this would be a great design for a wall hanging quilt, since the quilt is so neutral.  It might serve better as a bed quilt, which would mean adding some significant size to the quilt.  Even though we have a queen sized bed, my husband and I use king size comforters and blankets on the bed. We’re bad at sharing.  So a king size bed would mean an 110″x120″.  That’s an additional 58″across and 48″ in height.  If I do that, I’ll need to add some color to the quilt.  So this is what I’m thinking: the original design, offset with a border. Something like this, though not necessarily in these colors, as it’s very similar in color and layout to my chevron quilt.

bird-quilt-king

Which means I either need to look at some alternative color/print combinations or go a different route entirely for a king size quilt.  Maybe something like this.

bird-quilt-king2

What would you do with the quilt?  Would you make a king size version, or leave it throw sized?

1 Comment

  1. Beth Curtis on February 25, 2014 at 10:15 pm

    I like your design for the Collage fabrics. I have a collection of Collage fat quarters and I’m still thinking about what I am going to do with them. As far as making your quilt larger for a king sized bed I usually lean toward symmetry but the offset layout leaves lots of open space for quilting.

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