The Birds and the Butterflies - WiP Wednesday

I've linked flickr photos of these previously, but now that I've got this blog going I thought I'd backtrack and put them all together, for posterity's sake.

It started out when I saw Red Pepper Quilts butterfly quilt. I was smitten! I just didn't know what fabric I wanted to use, or how much I wanted to blatantly mimic her quilt. A little while later I saw Lecien's Flower Sugar 2013 (I think), and I knew that was destined to become my butterfly quilt. I drafted up some paper piecing templates and started making 6" finished butterfly blocks. As you can see, I did follow the inspiration fairly closely, with a black background and texty prints for the butterfly bodies.

Proto-block on top of my template. I ended up piecing
using freezer paper so I could reuse the papers. 

First four blocks. 

As I was sewing along I especially liked the polka dot florals. I also saw some adorable birds while on an internet tangent. I traced them back to their block lotto tutorial, and made a couple test birdies. Thus, my border was born!

Every bird is different. Different fabric placement, different legs, different beaks.
Florals are still Flower Sugar, solids are Kaffe Fassett shot cottons.  

So, now I've got the butterflies in the center, a black polka dot border, and birds as my outer border. It's fairly large. Like 108" by 90". And I'm going to attempt to quilt it myself. I've even got it all basted and ready to go. 

It took me all afternoon to baste this beast!

Linking up to WiP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.