45 degree diamonds | Simple Bird Applique

I have been making pretty steady progress on the first border of my “Ladies of the Sea”. This quilt is intended for my son, so I am trying to keep the colours “manly”.

I love making bunches of grapes! I used 3 shades of purple. First I started with the dark grapes….

…then the medium grapes (although in the picture they look pretty dark!)…

…and next, the light grapes. Aren’t those little red stars adorable! I haven’t stitched them yet, so those pesky points are still sticking out. I think they look like little sea creatures. You can read about how I handle those pesky points here.

Next, I added a few more leaves and vines. I am not sure if you can tell from the picture, but some of my shapes are stitched in place, and some are not. That is how I work. I like to prep for a while (maybe an hour or so) and then I stitch for a while, usually in the evening in front of the TV.

So when it came time to stitch the maple leaves in the border, I decided to do needleturn. Yes, needleturn! When I made the first block of this quilt, I prepped all the pieces in the usual way, but decided to needleturn the maple leaves. You can see that post here.

Like most quilters, I have a scrap collection that just keeps growing. I decided to go through all my scraps and make as many diamonds as I can. I am using the 45 degree diamond from the Free Shape Collection from Inklingo.

Because I am using all different shapes and sizes of scraps, I am ending up with different amount of diamonds, so in order to stay super-organized, I drew some lines at 45 degree angles to give me a “map” of what my diamonds would look like once stitched together. So now, I can count up exactly how many diamonds of each fabric I need for a complete star. Oh! I almost forgot…I drew the lines to include the seam allowance. And, I used double sided tape to hold the diamonds on the paper, so they don’t fall off.

It is Saturday morning and I am still in my jammies, sipping my coffee and hand stitching my diamonds together. Can life get any better?? I think not!