I immediately called on my online quilter friends for advice. I didn't find anyone who had done it before. Someone said to line each section of aida cloth so the batting won't beard through the holes, so I started with that. Then the blocks spent a lot of time on the "design wall" (that's a flannel sheet hung on the wall with a curtain rod, not fancy but it works). It was a challenge to arrange them; mixing the various styles and colors of aida cloth and then filling in the gaps to get columns and rows. I selected fabric from my "stash". I started with greens, browns, looked for some florals (got a little purple, but I think it's OK) I wanted the fabrics to be varied as the cross stitch panels were varied. I was hoping this would draw attention away from the differences in the birds. I think matchy matchy fabrics would have accentuated the differences in the cross stitch panels. I played around a lot with the fill-in pieces. I probably made twice as many as I needed and then chose from those. The scrappy border was an after thought, but it needed something. I chose the quilting design because it reminds me of puzzle pieces (something else my Aunt enjoys) It's a basic meandering. The stiffness of the aida cloth gave free motion quilting on my basic sewing machine a whole new feel and I was glad it wasn't any bigger than it was. The label on the back lists the name I gave it: "Birds of a Feather" (My Aunt and I have a lot in common. My mother once said that maybe I should have been her daughter. I think it was when I was learning counted cross stitch, too funny!). I just love the way it turned out and hope they do to. I will happily take it back at any point.
