Amuse Bouche

I suppose it sounds a little strange to describe creating an eagle quilt in terms of food, but I think amuse bouche perfectly describes the small project I started last night.  An amuse bouche (literally "mouth amuser") is an individual hors d'oeuvre served to prepare guests for the meal to come and introduce the style of the chef.  My little project serves to initiate the creative process and help me focus on the project to come.

This project has been on my "to do" list for well over a year.  I was inspired by a small wallhanging at my local quilt shop, The Quilted Owl.  A customer gifted the store owner with a small, postage stamp type quilt with an embroidered owl in the center.  I wanted to make my own version with a bluework embroidered eagle and in a red, white and blue fabric colorway.  The Quilt Like an Eagle QAL was the perfect excuse to finally get this project started!

First, I found an eagle drawing that would lend itself to embroidery.  I used my photo editing program to shrink the drawing to the appropriate size.  Then I printed the drawing and darkened all the lines with a felt tip pen so the image would be easier to trace to fabric.

 

Using a small scrap of Kona Snow, I traced the eagle using a water-soluble quilt marking pencil.  I started embroidering with two strands of DMC floss (blue, although it looks much darker in the picture), but after finishing the first wing I wasn't happy with the result.   I switched to one strand of floss for part of the head and was much happier.  Instead of ripping out the earlier stitches, I'm just going to start over.  This time I'll get a decent-sized piece of fabric so I can use an embroidery hoop!

 

Red, white and blue scraps are no problem.  These are left-overs from a Minick and Simpson project.

 

When finished, the quilt will measure approximately 12 inches x 12 inches.

Just the little bit of work I did on this project last night really helped me focus my thoughts on the big eagle quilt project that will be unfolding over the next year.  I'm really tickled to have this amuse bouche to get me ready for the fun to come!

Quick note:  I got a little carried away yesterday trying to catalog the multitude of four block eagle quilts to be found via the 'net.  There's a new board dedicated to them in the Pinterest links section.  There are also several new links in the Other Inspiration section, so do check them out!