Project Quilting Challenge 15.1: Birdhouses

Instagram is full of quilty inspiration, from new patterns to quilt-alongs to swaps and challenges.  One challenge that I have been watching for years is Project Quilting, in which a prompt is given on a Sunday and participants have one week to put together a quilted project that fits the theme.  For some reason, I've always felt too shy to jump in, but that all changed this week.  Introducing my Project Quilting Challenge 15.1 project: Birdhouses!

It's been a long time since I made a small art quilt just for fun.  I used to do a lot of swaps, but stopped because they were taking over all of my sewing time.  Working on this, I realized that I miss making tiny quilts!  It's such a great way to play with custom quilting on something that's easy to move around and doesn't take forever to finish the whole project.

I went into this with the mantra of "don't overthink it" and hoping for something a little cartoony.  My kids are always up for an arty challenge so I asked each of them to draw a birdhouse for me.  One of them asked if he could do it digitally and one asked if he could do a 3D model, and of course I said yes to both.  I combined the three birdhouses into a digital sketch, then made a very rough FPP pattern.  It was freeing to know that no one else would ever use the FPP pattern, so I didn't bother fixing anything that came out wonky; I just dealt with it during the construction process.  I also moved lines around at will when I was putting it together.

Most of the fabric I used came from my scrap bins - I actually started with the floral fabric that's in the logs.  I had a single "honey bun" (1.5" x WOF) strip of that left over from a subscription box that I loved but was also too skinny for most of my projects (it's really a terribly-sized precut; do not recommend).  The vertical stripes on the yellow house are actually from the same honey bun precut!  I originally planned on using mostly solids and then creating the design with thread but quickly abandoned that idea.

My finished quilt measures 16x16 - I like this size for finished mini quilts because then I can back it with a random fat quarter.  In this case, some Ruby Star Society birds that always seem to be the wrong size for my fussy cutting projects.  The top piece of batting in my batting scrap pile measured 19x19, a perfect match for this little quilt.  The binding is brown, to mimic a window or a picture frame.

All in all, I had a lot of fun making this mini quilt.  I'm looking forward to seeing what the next prompt is in a week!  I'm linking up my successful finish with the Project Quilting Challenge page.