marymm

Here are a few pictures I took at bird-watching areas in High Island, Texas, near Galveston. There has to be a quilt in these pictures of egrets and Roseate Spoonbills. With several other birds (plus several huge turtles and alligators) they live in a rookery. The young egrets were maturing, but there were still eggs in the spoonbill nests.

isnthatodd

Great pictures of some beautiful birds!

Sewfine

Yes, I'm sure there is a quilt there, but how can it be done?

marymm

A friend suggested I print the photos and maybe do some quick pieced blocks between. Somehow, I want to do something more creative, maybe applique. There were literally hundreds of these birds on one little piece of land surrounded by water and filled with "scrub trees."

Missysgottohelp

Oh these are great. I was just in Galveston about a month ago. I have family in Port Arthur and we always go to Galveston when I visit. I will have to find this place next year when I go down.

craftybear

love the birds, thanks for sharing with us

luckylindy333

Wow, beautiful pictures! Maybe you can use a computer program that will show you all the colors in one of your favorite pictures, then make a quilt in those colors- with the picture embroidered in the center, appliqued or just printed on fabric. I especially like the pink birds.

marymm

I've always loved flamingoes, but these spoonbills were just as beautiful. I'm not very computer literate, but I'll have to look into some of these ideas. I should add: I've lived within 100 miles of this area more than 35 years and never visited High Island before. That is so embarrassing. There were visitors there from several other countries and states as far away as California. The Audubon Society of Houston has done a wonderful job for bird watchers here.

QM

I can tell you what i did with the eagle picture in my avatar, and twice with dog pictures. My printer has a "poster" option. I printed my picture so that it was blown up for 16 pieces of paper. Many instant print or T shirt shops will do this as well, from your photo on disc or memorty stick, often on one very large piece of paper. My picture was WAY past the stage of being fuzzy, but that did not matter. Your picture quality should be even better.

After taping my pages together, I cut the whole thing into color areas. Remember, since it was my picture, I also had a regular sized print as a guide. I labeled the segments as I cut them, as well. My cut up segments served as templates. Of course, I needed to add seam allowancesas I cut. A quilting diva I saw on TV said to make 2 full sized prints. I did not find that necessary.

Remember to do the background first.

After I'd appliqued the whole thing together, I added texture with my free motion quilting. For my border collie and the eagle, this was very important, but less so for my friend's shorthaired dog.

The collie wall hanging was the first I'd ever tried. It brought very good money at a local auction, higher than several bed quilts.

I can't draw worth beans, so I was delighted that this technique worked so well. It was not terribly hard, but was very time consuming and also took lots of time shopping for exactly the right fabrics.

dunster

Great pictures. If not a quilt, perhaps they could become the inspiration for a ladies hat in the UK?