Keep the Birds in the Air

"Keep Birds in the Air"  12" x 8.5"   Machine pieced, and fusible applique,  Hand embroidery,  pulled thread 'feather', machine quilted.       

Completed on 2/23/2020 for Project Quilting challenge "Birds in the Air"


The lady's hat industry in the late 1800's caused or nearly caused the extinction of multiple beautiful bird species.  In 1896,  the near extinction of the Snowy Egret caused some high society women to petition for legislation to stop the killing.  This lead to the Migratory Bird Act.

more information at this article at Smithsonian Magazine:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-two-women-ended-the-deadly-feather-trade-23187277/


Now about this project:

The challenge requirement was to use this traditional quilt block: 

There are many ways to set this and use it, and of course, I wanted to find a political message for my project.  I thought about birds, and had recently heard a podcast about the black market trade for particular bird feathers - in this case they are being used for fishing lures, but the real decimation of our bird populations happened because of ladies hats. 

I started with some images of lady's hats like these:

I traced off a hat shape, then added the quilt block behind.    Notice that the "Birds in the Air" blocks change color when forming the hat (brown and tan)  than when they are in the background (blue and white) 

Next I pieced the larger triangles of the block and created a background that looked like this - again, notice placement of brown/tan  vs blue/white: 

I knew I didn't have the patience or the precise sewing skills to piece all the tiny triangles, and I've been enjoying using Lite Steam-a-Seam 2,  so I started laying in all the small triangles and then the contours of hat like this: 

Once that was all done, the hat was not really visible, so I embroidered an outline and then started embroidering the feathers.  After 3 days.  the resulting feather was SO unsatisfying that I decided to take it out.  But here is it (as promised) for posterity: 

                             

Going, going.... 

Gone! 

What I really wanted was a large white feather,  so I appliqued then machine quilted this feather, and it was almost right: 

On Sunday morning, drinking my coffee before binding the quilt, I saw an online tutorial for making fabric feathers, and I was thinking, 'man!  my sister would love those'.   Then I headed to my sewing machine to wrap up the quilt - because the post was due in an hour.  But those feathers!!   

I tried doing it, but didn't have the right fabric.  I resigned myself to just binding this and finishing and then it HAPPENED. 

The right fabric poked its head out of the piles I have sitting on the side of my cutting table  (my VERY  neat, VERY  organized, VERY ………  oh who am I kidding .... the mess I have all over my sewing space )    So I did some quick fabric feathers,  sewed them down, and voila!   FEATHERS! 

We are abusing our natural environment. We rape the land, the sea, the animals for our venal purposes and resist out of comfort, misguided sense of superiority, stubbornness, inertia any attempts to curb our consumption.   The land suffers.  The sea suffers.  Animals suffer - some all the way into extinction,  some to brink.   People suffer too.  We formed democracies to pull us out of the cruelty that is monarchy and yet are failing to truly consider our neighbors' pain in our life. 

Its just a hat.  Put something else on your head that doesn't cause such pain. 

Those feathers belong on the birds in the air.  Shoot them with a camera. 

Plastic bag bans are not going to kill us.  Start carrying a reusable bag.  Its LITERALLY the least we can do.  

Lets do more. 

Peace, 

Paula