Poor Little Crow - Baskets of Plenty #6

It's a good thing this poor little crow is made of fabric and has no awareness of himself.  Otherwise, he might notice that his beak looks more like a dolphin's nose and that his tail feathers are permanently  ruffled.  I continue to struggle with the points of turned-edge applique:  they tend to curve, as the tips of the right and left hearts do, or not be very pointed at all.  I'm hoping the adage "practice makes perfect" is true.

This is basket #6 of Cheri Payne's Facebook sew-along, Baskets of Plenty.  Her blocks are always so full and rich with plenty of leaves and berries.  Her version of this basket has two small crows facing each other with a heart between.  Of course, we don't know her layout until after we've had four weeks to decide and stitch down our own.

Cheri used a charcoal background for her block but thinking that charcoal would not settle well with the colors in my other blocks, I chose this brown fabric.  At one time it was a shirt.  I used the back because the front had tiny, small, light leaves and tiny pink buds.  The color was right but the print was too busy.  The reverse seemed fine.

I like the colors of the flowers in this block a lot and I especially like them against the brown background.  Perhaps a peach/pink/coral and brown quilt is in my future.

I backed myself into a corner with this block.  I appliqued everything but the centers of the flowers on the right and then couldn't find fabric I thought worked.  I tried several blues, a brown or two, and a couple in the red range.  All of them weighed down the right side and drew the eye directly to them.  I opted to stay in the same color range as the other flowers.

I envisioned one little heart in the center of the basket but it nearly disappeared laying there by itself.  I imagined a string of hearts across the top of the basket but those hearts are so small and hard to make that I stopped with three.  Wednesday morning I laid all three where they are now and thought them perfect.  They, too, were cut from recycled shirts.

I call this block finished and I'm satisfied with it but I know that as it hangs on the wall it may insist on leaves or some other addition.

The top photo was taken in natural light without a flash, the bottom with a flash.  They're really close in color but the bottom one is slightly truer to the colors of the fabric than the first.  If you want to see details click on either photo.  I'm not using Blogger's Lightbox so they'll enlarge several times.


I'm linking this post to
> Oh Scrap! at Quilting is more fun than Housework
> Finished or Not Friday at Busy Hands Quilts
> finish it up Friday at crazy mom quilts
> TGIFF at Janda Bend Quilts
Thanks for hosting, ladies.

--Nancy.