Needle, Paper, Scissors Challenge

October's challenge was to complete a paper pieced project, foundation or English, that was up to us. The project could be of any size.

I am very fond of foundation paper piecing in spite of all the "waste" of fabric and removing paper from the back when the project is finished. I have done quite a lot of FPP, but never as small and detailed as this. The above picture shows all the pattern parts for the project I chose; the Bitty Eagle block, a pattern by Janeen van Niekerk of Quilt Art Designs.

Everything fits in one A4 sheet of paper. The finished block is 5" square.

For the eagle I used solids in black, white and grey, and a couple of Batik Foundations. The strip set of Vintage Morris provided colors for the eyes and beak of the eagle.

Here is the resulting "portrait" of the Bald Eagle before the paper is removed. It is a bold and proud eagle; I managed to capture the perfect look in its face and eyes.

There were a lot of small pieces in this block, and it took quite a long time to make it look exactly how I wanted.

Since this is a fairly small block, I wanted to "frame" the eagle like it is hanging in a picture frame on the wall. First it got a frame of batik foundations - Bubbles Sahara all around.

I wanted to put the frame on a green wall of batik foundations Bubbles Sprout, and chose to add a shadow around the frame to enhance the eagle a little more.

I used Hobbs Thermore batting, and Aurifil thread for both piecing and quilting. The green background (or wall) is quilted with Aurifil 50 wt in 5016, and the frame with 5013 (see below). Aurifil 2370 was used in the bobbin.

I also wanted to add some thread painting to my piece, to spruce it up. Aurifil 40 wt in 2024, 2175 and 2600 was used for this. and This is the first time I have ever done thread painting. I think the eagle feather looks quite nice at the bottom of my piece.

The binding is Cherwell Copper Vintage, and it matches the fall leaves perfectly.

Here's a detailed picture of the feather, not bad for a first try of thread painting.

The finished size of my wallhanging is approx 12" x 15", and now I just have to find a place for it on my wall.


Thanks to Island Batik, Aurifil and Hobbs for providing fabric, thread and batting for this project.