Q for Quail

I'm working on a baby quilt (of course). I've actually finished the quilt top, but I decided for the back, it would be great to include my block printed, illustrated letters on fabric. I've now made 14 letters, so I still have 12 to carve, but I should still have plenty of time to finish, I hope. Here's my latest: Q for Quail. I love how the top feather on a California quail sort of mimics the tail of a q. I used to see bustling little quail families regularly when I lived on Vancouver Island. They always struct me as having funny personalities; they managed to seem a wee bit pompous yet bumbling.









These are open edition, printed on various Japanese papers, 14.8 cm or 5⅞ inches square.

Scrappy Strip Quilt - and butterflies, dinosaurs, fractals and more

I finished my quilt. I was torn on whether I wanted to block print the fabric or not... but I'm glad I did. Here's the reverse:



I made this quilt with stripes of fabric scraps from my stash, including vintage thrifted fabrics and contemporary prints. I block printed the sashing with my own carved monarch butterfly lino block. The reverse is a patchwork with the green sashing fabric, rectangles of the fabrics used on the front and a series of my block prints on fabric including a dinosaur, jellyfish, bees, butterflies, Russian nesting dolls, a fractal triangle, a quail, a rhino, and a blue whale. The quilting is done in a couple of variegated threads, by machine. The quilt is 39 inches by 57 inches (1 m by 146 cm), maybe the size of a child's bed.



Pretty nifty what one can do with scraps, imagination and patience, no?

Quail

Sometimes I carve a lino block and it doesn't quite come out how I intended. Sometimes this is great, or interesting, or something I live with. Of course, my own taste is no gauge of what others may like. Today, I editioned my quail block, because Reynardin told me how much she liked it. Maybe it's better than I think it is. Based on comments, though I don't think I captured the quintessential quail movement, I at least caught that funny little head-cocking movement they make.







When I lived on Vancouver Island, I regularly saw families of California Quail, bumbling around, looking somewhat officious, yet completely adorable. This is an original lino block printed quail on cream-coloured Japanese kozo, or mulberry paper, 10.5 inches by 7.75 inches or 26.6 cm by 19.7 cm. It is inked à la poupée which means small areas are inked in different colours, using a single lino block. It is one of a first edition of only 8 prints.

Quail on the Town Pillow - Handprinted Patchwork

I made a new pillow. It combines the popular line drawing of city homes, and the Echino by Etsuko Furuya fabric, a nice stripey fabric along with my block printed quail on a cotton patterned with calligraphy. The reverse is a textured cream fabric with a grey stripe and green minouette block printed tentacle label, combined with a funky vintage game bird fabric.

It is 12 inches (30.5 cm) tall and 13 inches (33 cm) wide.

My mother saw this print and said, "It`s a prairie chicken!"
I responded, "Right... uh.. it`s a quail. Q for quail."
My mother`s nostalgia for the prairie knows no bounds. I looked it up- a prairie chicken is related to, but not identical to a quail. Males have those nifty circular, orange unfeathered neck patches which can be inflated while displaying in the mating ritual called booming. They lack, however, the distinctive quail top-feather.

Quail Monoprint

Quail monoprint
Originally uploaded by the.minouette

This is a block print on various Japanese washi papers, in brown and black. It is 8.5 inches by 9.75 inches (21.5 cm by 24.8 cm). The top has inclusions of fibres, the bottom has gold and silver foil flecks.

The MSOE challenge fro May 09, is ornithology.

I may make some more birds before the month is through, but I added a quail to my shop.

Q is for Quail & Quilt

So I finally added another block to my alphabet-quilt-in-progress. Q is obviously for quail. They are so comical looking. We used to see them a lot on Vancouver Island. Whole little bustling families, with bossy parent-quails trying to round up bumbling, fluffy, little balls of quail. They would walk in a line from tallest to smallest. The male top feathers look so imperious and pompous. Plus, they are very small, and yet make quite the racket if they think you might step on them.

Also, I love self-referentiality: a quilt within a quilt, with some vintage fabric showing game birds including quails. (The same fabric appears on the giraffe I made ).


Coincidentally, the MSOE team challenge for the month of May is Ornithology. So I whipped up some multimedia quail-on-various papers. I think I'll submit a pillow. I printed the quail block on print fabric showing calligraphy. I think it worked well with my letterpress Q.

In fact, the top-feather echoes the tail of the Q.

Alphabet quilt remaining letters: U, V, X, Y. I will finish this project! I will.