The Wayward Jungle Crow
2015
23 x 27
Hand dyed fabric and thread, commercial fabric, vintage linens, old wool shirt, machine pieced, hand appliqued, hand embroidered, hand and machine quilted.
Inspired by A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki.
I've posted lots of closeups so you can see the stitching. My hand embroidery includes a lot of backstitching. I did fly stitch on the tail. 
The bird includes and is surrounded by spirals. The spirals represent the Pacific gyres that are talked about quite a bit in the book, plus they are fun to do!
The fabrics include several vintage linens, including the edge of a fine linen tablecloth (above) that was overdyed in indigo and walnut. I laid the whole piece over the darker blue you can see below, and tacked the whole edge down. I employed Jude Hill's invisible basting stitch quite a bit on this piece, so occasionally you'll see tiny stitches that show through. On the right is the piece of a heavy linen table cloth that was overdyed in indigo. I left the fringe hanging down.
The top piece is from an old Pendleton wool shirt gifted to me by a friend. I machine quilted spirals and stars into it, then went over the stars with some embroidery thread and a backstitch to create the white star outlines.
The stars in the middle are created with liberated piecing. I tried a lot of stitching here that I learned from Jude Hill. The satin stitched points, satin stitched star and black and white star tails are all ideas from Jude. 
This piece was really fun to do. I decided to bite the bullet and machine quilt it last weekend. Good choice, actually, cause I had no idea I'd have the flu by Tuesday. I've been very sick all week. Both of the guys caught it too, so we've laid low all week and I haven't done any sewing at all. I am resting a lot and trying to get healthy before I leave for QuiltCon on Wednesday. I'm a whole lot better, but still get pretty tired. I am glad this one is done though. I have a few more finishes to show (small things), but don't know if I'll get to them before I leave. In the meantime, I have started something for another challenge. You can see photos of that in my Instagram feed.
If you are also traveling to QuiltCon say hello! I will be Instagramming while I'm in Austin, but won't do blog posts until I get back. I am taking my big camera though, so I hope to get some great photos to share!
