Past Quilt #2: Red Cardinals

Here is another of my past quilts. This one is a winter landscape scene with 2 red cardinals. I love stark winter scenes where you see a bright splash of color on a white backdrop. I've seen many photos like this, and always wanted to make a quilt depicting that kind of scene.

I fussy-cut the birds from a printed fabric that had all different kinds of birds on it. I cut long, narrow strips of black fabric so the birds would be sitting in a tree - more likely than hopping around on the cold ground.

I also used a fabric that had a birch tree print from selvage to selvage so I cut long, narrow strips of it to make trees. I also wanted little Christmas pine trees in the background, so I cut them using a very dark green batik.

The backdrop and borders are the same fabric, but I felt the quilt needed a little more "pop" of color, so I added the inner red border to frame the whole scene. It's also important to pay attention to details in any outdoor landscape, and if you look long, you'll notice nothing in nature is ever truly just one shade or color - and there is always always some form of vegetation popping through - even if it's dead grass. Hence the spots of gold "dead" grass I free motioned randomly on the ground floor. This also adds some color and visual interest to the quilt in a subtle way, without taking away from the winter scene as a whole or drawing too much attention away from the birds.

 

 

 

This is one of my favorite smaller landscape quilts. I hope you enjoy it too! And I'm linked up to the Weekend Bloggy Reading so check it out - great reading from some fabulous bloggers.

 

CGM