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.

Great pictures of some beautiful birds!

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

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."

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.

love the birds, thanks for sharing with us

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.

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.

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.

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

Wow. What great pictures you were able to get. Thanks for sharing.

Have you ever done photo quilts where you put several sheets of fabric that have been put through the printer together.

QM, I will save your suggestion. I love that idea. And Dunster, those feathers would make a "fascinating fascinator." What a wonderful word for a headdress!

Deb, I haven't tried that. Obviously, I need to do some research. I've only recently become a bit obsessed with photography--or in my case, picture snapping, since a lot depends on luck. I've used some images on crazy quilting, but not otherwise.

Love the attitude one. But they are all great pictures.

Hungry babies would make a beautiful quilt!

Beautiful pictures!

Thank you, all. I do enjoy the sharing and after reading comments, I found two books on web with ideas for using photos in quilts. I will see about ordering at least one tomorrow.!

Those are great photos and worthy of interpretation into a quilt. I especially like the one of the mother egret feeding her babies.

I like them all. The male in his breeding plumage would be the easiest to make into a quilt, IMHO.

Great pictures! I love the birds!

great photoes thank you for shareing lokking forward to seeing what you do with fabric

Nice thank you for sharing.

Check out McKenna Ryan's quilts. (Just Google her name, lots will come up.) They will give you inspiration for turning these lovely pictures into a beautiful quilt! :D :D

Beautiful pictures!

I see some serious applique in your future...unless you print the pics onto fabric!

Your photos are awesome. Thanks for sharing.

love the pics esp the 1st one

great photography....and of course - how about printing some of those photos on fabric & then add some nice borders?!?!?!?!

great pictures

How cool is that... thank you so much for sharing.

How adorable!

Awesome....some of the reasons I love Texas!!

Wow! That must be so cool to live so close to a place like that.... to see them in their natural habitat. So neat!! Great pictures!!

What neat pictures!

Great pictures,thanks for sharing,would love to see them in person.WOW

Love the photos. Check out this website for ideas: http://thedigitalquilt.com/. They taught at Empty Spools Seminars at Asilomar several times while I was there. They work is very nice. They have a couple of books as well.

beautiful pics! :D

I would print those pictures on that printable fabric that you can buy at Joanns and then let them dry over night and then sew them up into a quilt Gorgious birds! Enjoy, Huggies, Fay

Thanks for sharing those great pictures I'm sure you will come up with somrthing fantastic!!