Letting my hair down

This month at Sew Connected 3 we have 2 different sets of fabric to work with. Jessica's plan was to make a bird themed quilt so she sent each of us a bird fabric with some coordinating fabrics- the only request being that the bird is the focal point of the block.

It'll be a breeze I thought, not much of a challenge as I could do whatever I wanted... hmmm yeah, right! I opened my package and found one tiny piece of bird fabric- Michael Millers' Tweet Tweet (which I have been lusting after)- which has little birdies in cages, super cute, but as the scrap was so small I was totally intimidated.

Jessica said we could add fabric... and I thought crap I have no bird fabric in my stash... or do I?? A quick search through my stash turned up some leftover Amy Butler Temple Flower fabric from my sampler quilt- that has birds AND coordinates with perfectly with the fabrics Jessica sent.... heheh, an evil plan it hatched- I'll switch bird fabrics, brilliant!

So away I went and came up with a really simple traditional block showing off my birdy....

Hmm, that's kinda lame isn't it! I also guilty for"cheating"and that I wasn't pushing myself enough, the whole point of me joining this quilting bee was to stretch my sewing skills and creativity. So, back our comes the Tweet Tweet fabric and the leftover pieces and I came up with this.

Now I am normally verging on the anal side when it comes to straight lines and have already had a minor battle with that already with this bee, and this time I just winged it and let the fabric decide how it would go together. After seeing the completed block I think I'll be adding a freestyle quilt to my to do list- oh yeah, and buying some of that Tweet Tweet fabric for myself!