Back from Vacation and Feathering the Nest!

Somehow a week of camping turned into a month of unintentional "vacation" from my sewing machine. How'd that happen? I thought that with my husband's return I'd be a busy bee in my office, but it was more like "hmm... what fun family thing can we do today?" and then when my in-laws took the girls for a few days it was "hmm... what fun kid-free things can we do today?" (We finally checked ziplining and the Portland Museum of Art off our bucket list!) As much as I had hoped for a more productive end to summer via sewing, I have to say that I'm just as happy for the very productive month of family memories we made instead : )

With school starting this week for everyone but me, it means jumping back into a really nice tidy scheduled routine - the one where I get big blocks of uninterrupted time to sew! Yesterday marked my first day of work [in way too long] and I created these birds for our dining area off the kitchen. I painted an accent wall a while back and have been trying to decide on something whimsical for the walls since the room is so informal (what with the fridge usually hidden under an avalanche of kids' art and not nearly enough storage to have the counters clutter-free). A picture my daughter brought home from school served as my inspiration piece; her multicolored bird seemed like a great applique idea! And except for the background, I was able to whip them all up with scrap fabric - double bonus!

(Even double-er bonus? I finally found a use for this blah onion fabric that's been rotting in my stash. I bought a fat quarter set of veggies a while back for the wonderful tomatoes and peppers, but I had no use for this piece for till now. Of the eyes, beak, and feet, I'm most pleased with how the feet turned out. Now the only problem is what to do with the rest of the still mostly intact fat quarter??)

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Ta da! The new view when we're pecking away at dinner:

On a side note, I used an online color tool for the first time on this project. I don't have a hard time coordinating fabrics, but I pull wayyy too many pieces from my stash in the narrowing down process. This time around I picked exactly what colors I was aiming for up front and then only pulled what matched. Green was tricky because I've realized I don't have any cooler mid-greens in my stash, but I only needed a little, so I fudged it. Here's my chosen palette: Considering it was all scraps (except for the onions : P) I did well staying in scheme!

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