Flying Flamingo Pillow

Flamingo Thread Painting Appliqued and Quilted Into A Pillow

Amy, at http://amyscreativeside.com/bloggers-quilt-festival/ is hosting her spring blogger's quilt festival again.   As usual, it will be wonderful and she'll have put in countless hours providing us with untold pleasure as we peruse all the entries.  This is the flamingo pillow made for hubby last Christmas.  Years and years ago, I'd told him I thought those plastic yard flamingos were fun.  He said, "I'll know we're over if I ever come home and find one of those in the front yard!"  Well...never one to forego a challenge, from then on I've found ways to give him flamingos.  And after awhile he and our family have gotten in on the fun, too.  We have flamingo puppets that amuse the grandkiddos, a little rug, Christmas ornaments, a monster-sized flamingo pen, etc.  

Nothing exciting, but the back

Saw a painting of a flamingo in flight and decided to "paint" with thread after being inspired by several quilters.  Enlarged the design, pinned it to material, batting and a backing and did an outline of largest areas.

This is a very out of focus picture, but shows the outline a bit.

Just started sewing very densely with the feeddogs down and my quilting foot.

Flamingo really coming together, but you can see the puckering that happened.

Up close with the "painting"

Ended up having to cut out the "painted" flamingo from the original material because of the puckering.  Stitched a very small and very tight zigzag all the way around it before cutting.  Then I appliqued that to another piece of the batik with backing and batting, again with a tight zigzag stitch.  Quilted it in a circular spiral sort of design to give it an airy feeling.  Then made the pillow case with piping.  It was definitely a labor of love and hubby was really happy for his present.

Be sure to go to Amy's and view all the quilting candy there.  You will not be disappointed!!!  Suppose this would be in the art category, or small quilts...not sure what other area it fits in!

http://fligamapoof.blogspot.com/search/label/flamingoes  shows a lot of the flamingos we have