Who Rules the Roost?

The chicken coop is full of activity, but who really rules the roost?

Is it the cocky rooster? The cute and fluffy chicks? Or maybe the jealous hen eyeing those eggs? I'll leave the decision up to wise owl, who's a curious observer of this chicken coop!

This wall hanging is my personal Round Robin quilt, made only by me at the same time as five of us worked on each other's RR quilts. The inspiration? Two of these rooster panels, which were probably meant to make a pillow.

One went with a lot of fabric for the group to work on, and one stayed with me. I'll show the group quilt next month - the guild members get to see it first. 

Our rounds were easy enough, with a choice between two blocks for each round. Being me, I did both blocks in each round:

1st - pinwheel or something from nature
        pinwheel barn quilt, and rooster panel

2nd - quilter's choice
           red checked border

3rd - flying geese or four patch
          chicken tracks, and greenery of the tree

4th - snowball or log cabin
             who rules the roost sign, and tree trunk

And what fun I had creating within those parameters! Of course, all of that scenery needs custom quilting - time to play again!

The tree got leaves, the sky clouds, and the trunk bark.

See my little owl? I bought a whole quarter of a yard just for him. And if I could have found squirrels or foxes in the right scale, I would have added those too. I was lucky enough to have a baby print in the stash with the little chicks on it to add to the open space in the coop.

They're held in by chicken wire, though they could probably escape if they wanted to! Needing just a quick refresher from my chicken wire tutorial, the design was pretty easy to quilt. Next week, I'll have another chicken wire quilting tutorial, this time with video!

Notice there's quilting behind that chicken wire? I thought it better to make the background all the same, then add chicken wire on top in just one area.

And then the barn, with it's quilted doors, using jump stitches to speed up the quilting of all those lines.

Final quilting touches include wood grain in the sign and on coop parts, bark in the tree trunk, and a horizontal stipple around the chicken tracks.

One last touch - the binding. Sky blue, green, and red bind this quilt, with seams to match the piecing. Check out the tutorials for straight seam matching, as seen at the sky and tree,

and matched angled binding, as seen at the bottom of the sign.

I'm thrilled with how this turned out, and can't wait to hang it up - it will be in good company with my other rooster, Fred, the Fugitive!

Have a great weekend, and I'll see you next week with more to crow about!