Happy May! Here’s your new monthly wallpaper for computers and phones and other devices!
Mother’s Day is this month, so I chose a Mama and Baby polar bear for this month’s computer wallpaper. Aren’t they a sweet pair? Alan’s next book features polar bears so we’ve been watching a bunch of polar bear videos. I can’t get enough of those baby bears! They’re so adorable.
Download your wallpaper for computers, phones, or tablets below. You can get it both with and without the May calendar, in case you want to keep that sweet pair on your screens during other months of the year. 🙂
I’ve been making sample blocks for this quilt pattern for months now, and I’m almost ready to release the pattern. 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. I used the Warm Neutrals bundle as a starting point, but I definitely needed to go beyond that. That bundle gives you five shades of grey (ranging from almost white to black), five shades of brown (again ranging from very light to very dark), a rusty brown and a golden color. 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.
When you shop for browns, make sure you’re also getting some reddish browns (cinnamon) and some greyish browns (taupe).
You’ll also want at least one white-on-white print, and one very dark grey-on-black.
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)
Colors
You’ll definitely want some yellows. I was surprised by how many birds have yellow! Get a couple of bright egg-yolk yellow, and also some more dull mustardy shades.
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.
Red. Most red birds tend to be orangey red rather than blue-ish reds, so keep that in mind as you shop.
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.
The Batik Rainbow bundle 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 Warm Neutral Batiks bundle 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.
I call the Box of Crayons bundle my grown-up rainbow. The colors are still intense, but a little more muted. The yellow is mustard rather than sunshine. This bundle also includes a brown and a grey.
The Rainbow Sherbet bundle is a favorite for baby quilts, but I also love it for the birds. They really pop against those pale pastels.
I think my favorite is the Muted Rainbow bundle. The colors are still bright, but they have a chalkier look. This bundle also includes a brown and a grey.
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. 🙂
Is March coming in like a lion for you? For me it’s coming in like a bedraggled kitten, with tons of rain. But temperatures are dropping and I’m hoping for a little more snow before spring actually arrives.
Download your wallpaper below. There are options both with and without the March calendar, in case you want to keep that groovy lion on your screens during other months of the year. 🙂
Here’s a quick peek at my lovebirds coming together.
Lovebirds come in lots of different colors, but I used the same rainbow color scheme for all three of my samples so you could see the difference just the fabric makes.
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. 🙂
Want to join in the 100 Day Project? There’s more info here.
Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, so I wanted to do something lovey, but not something too specific to the holiday so it will work all month long. 🙂
Lovebirds!
Download your wallpaper below. There are options both with and without the February calendar, in case you want to keep that sweet pair on your screens during other months of the year. 🙂
