Flamingos!

I found this great block when I was cleaning up yesterday, it was actually one more from Caryl Fallert's class.  This time an exercise in combining paper piecing, curved applipiecing, and the use of contrast gradients.  I used two intersecting gradients; as the pink gets darker, the grey gets lighter.

  I think flamingos are pretty aswesome;  all pink and curvy and incongruous (unless you live in Africa or South America).  I'd been wanting to do something with this flamingo print I'd bought a long time ago, but in spite of their pinkness and coolness, my quilts don't often call for flamingo prints.  Here though, they fit in great.  I love the pink and grey pairing with just a pop of yellow to bring out the flamingo beaks.

I added some pink and black borders to make it a little bigger and then layered it for quilting.  This time I took the spray baste outside, no more sticky overspray in the house.  That stuff is persistent.

Since bright pink seems to be my color scheme lately, and the curvy bit reminded me of a flamingo neck, I thought I would quilt a flamingo into the background.  I lightly drew the outline with washable pencil and then quilted over it in bright pink thread (highlights from Superior).  I went over it several times so the flamingo would stand out nicely.  I then quilted him a little grey pond with pebbles and added some straight lines contrasting in the background.  Ta-da, mini flamingo quilt!  The block is about 8 inches square; with the border the finished wall hanging is about 15 inches or so.  I used more of the flamingo print for the binding.  I tried really hard to have smooth quilting with no birds nests or ugly starts and stops.  I'm slowly getting better!

Hope you enjoy!