Garden Bouquet Quilt ~ Meek Bird

In thinking about making these little birds, I think that I will make them matchy-matchy in pairs. So they will not be the same all over the whole quilt.

Meek Bird Pattern

This little bird, so meek and mild, like its saucy partner is used on each one of the 20 urns which make up the finished Nancy Page Garden Bouquet Quilt.

Therefore it is wise to keep the original pattern.

Nancy advised her club members to paste it into the Nancy Page scrap book. Then it could be used for reference at any time needed. The procedure in making this bird is similar to that of any applique work. First, Nancy suggests that its outline be traced lightly on the white triangle in the spot it will occupy when it is appliqued.

This placement is shown in the small insert pattern in the corner of the block. After the tracing is made on the cloth a second tracing is made on light-weight cardboard.

This is cut out and used as a pattern by which to cut the material. In cutting allow one-quarter inch on all sides for turning in the raw edges. Be sure to use fast color material.

Suggestions were made last week as to the best way to work out color schemes. She suggested, you remember, making all the birds alike all over the quilt. Or, making each pair alike, but different from the pair on a neighboring block. In this case the coloring of birds should fit in with coloring used for flowers.

Or, making a variation in the meek and the saucy bird. The meek one might have plain body and figured wing while its neighbor would reverse that – having a figured body and plain wing.

But in every case Nancy advised making legs, beak and eye plain. The legs should be darker than the beak. The eye may be of textile or embroidered in satin stitch with fast-colored embroidery cotton.

In appliqueing the pieces sew them with fine, invisible slanting hemming stitch. Be sure that raw edges are basted and pressed down before starting appliqueing.

If the same color scheme is selected for all the birds, these may be made any time, for the patterns are the same on all the twenty urn blocks. Just so soon as the urn is pieced and joined to the triangle of white the block is ready to have birds appliqued. It is only the flowers which change. Next week we have the cactus.

“Garden Bouquet Quilt – Saucy Bird Pattern” Newspapers.com, Edmonton Journal, November 21, 1931, https://www.newspapers.com/article/edmonton-journal-garden-bouquet-quilt/160618826/