Project Quilting 15.1 - Bird House

Bird House?  I have to admit that I wasn't exactly inspired by the theme.  But then again, not everyone has to like every theme.  I toyed with the idea of making an actual 3 dimensional bird house and using it for a tissue box cover, but I really wasn't excited about the idea. 

I then thought about doing an online search for bird house blocks.  Again, no excitement.  

When I first started quilting, I bought a number of resource books - yes, the real physical, hard copy hold-them-in-your-hands books.  They mostly sit on my shelves gathering dust, so I decided that it was time to start using them again.  

I found a block called 'Wren House' in Better Homes and Garden's 505 Quilt Blocks book, which was published in January 2003.  This book has a lot of what I'd call pictorial blocks.  I'm not sure that's the correct word, but what I mean is that most of the blocks are images of things (houses, flowers, animals, etc.) instead of traditional quilt blocks that are based on shapes.  

I don't want this to turn into a book review, but if you decide to look for the book, I want you to be aware of a few things.  On the plus side, there are lots and lots of good blocks. The down side is that the book doesn't really give instructions for making the blocks. It has general quilt making information, but it doesn't give dimensions for the blocks or for the pieces thereof.  It does number and letter the parts of each block so that you can figure out what in what order to piece or applique them. Also, all of the illustrations are about 4 inches square. That's not really a problem, as long as you can figure out how to increase the blocks if you want them larger.  

My printer/copier doesn't have the capability to resize, so I grabbed a pad of graph paper and a ruler and played around with proportions.  I managed to make a decent looking representation of the Wren House block that is about 8 inches across.  I added a little length because I wanted the house to look like it was high enough off the ground to keep a cat from jumping up onto it ;>.

I decided that, like many of my prior PQ projects, this was going to be a potholder.  

I dug into my scrap bin and found a cute blackbird print that I used for the house.  A mottled blue print for the background and black Kona cotton for the roof, pole and the entrance and I was done.  I quilted it with a simple straight lines because I like potholders to bend easily. The binding is more black Kona cotton.

Another PQ project done!