Fence Quilt Finish

I was able to finish my goal for the May round of Lovely Year of Finishes (goal setting post, over here), a barn COOP fence quilt. Originally I wanted to make a barn quilt since I will never be able to make a quilt for my chickens that they would appreciate (and by appreciate I mean not stomp on and cover in feces). Then it occurred to me that we don't have a barn, so I better make a coop quilt. So I got started making a plan. Halfway through the process, it occurred to me that their final chicken coop might not have a convenient place to hang the finished product. Then my boyfriend suggested I hang it on the fence for everyone, chicken and human alike, to enjoy, so the name evolved again.

When I last showed a progress update, I had finished painting the block design and was utterly flummoxed with the sealing phase. I am pleased to announce that after sanding off the spray enamel, I was able to successfully add three coats of satin polycrylic and I could not be happier with the end result. I opted for a satin finish because I didn't want to be blinded by the dang thing whenever harsh South Texas sun was shining, which is basically always, btw.

So this is what I see when I go out the back door and turn left. 

This is what the chickens see from the front of their coop. I think everyone has a great view.

Here is a closeup shot that really illustrates the colors and the awesomeness that is the satin finish.

And since I coudn't get the lighting correct anyways (I told you harsh South Texas sun was ever-present) here is a fun artsy shot. Look at how well those seams match up! ;)

The quilt was screwed to the fence just in time for the chickens 14th [week] birthday on Monday! Aww! Here they are celebrating with a nice bouquet of babies breath that grew out of the ground just for them (or so they would like to believe). They celebrated by eating the babies breath.


Here are some closeups of my lovely ladies, in no particular order. If you want to read about why they have such odd names, I tried my best to explain it all over here.

First up we have Eglantine (Eggy).


Then here comes Bullroarer (BRthur).


And lastly we have Polydontosaurus (Polly).

Wow! They are growing up so quickly!

WIP Wednesday

Apparently I am trying so hard to relax after submitting my grades that I am rebelling against sewing because not much got worked on this week. I have been staying busy with a ton of non-sewing projects. Here is the nearly completed mug rug for Mug Rug Revival.


Here is the exterior of the bag I'm making for Super Swaps. Now to bust a move and finish the interior and add some straps. I want this and the mug rug to be in the mail over the next day or so.


This is the progress I have made on my May LFoY goal: A barn chicken-coop quilt for my hens that will now be hung on the fence near the coop. I have finished the design and now just need to seal and hang it. I used spray enamel and it came out horribly so I'm going to add brush-on polycrylic and hope that it can adhere or else I'm sanding it all off and starting again.


Speaking of my little ladies (I can no longer call them girls, but they aren't quite women yet), here they are being utterly confused by their first experience with rain. We had to put them in their house when the rain started because they didn't know how to stay dry.


Oh my gosh, aren't these just the cutest hens in the world?? From left to right: Polyodontosaurus (Polly for short), Eglentine (Eggy for short), & Bullroarer (BR to my boyfriend, Bea Arthur to me).

Maybe I should explain the names. Bullroarer has hilarious feathers growing out of her legs, feet, and toes which reminded me of a hobbit. She has always been the biggest hen, so that seemed like a good fit even though the actual hobbit named Bullroarer was a male.

Then we were trying to find another hobbity name for the one on the left. We had already been calling her "Polly" though since she has an extra toe (genetic trail of extra toes is called polydactyly) but there were no hobbit names that started with "Polly" so naturally we started searching through dinosaur genera and found Polyodontosaurus grandis, a small, bird-like dinosaur. Perfect!

Then we come to the middle hen. Eglantine was another distant hobbit name, but it also happens to be the name of Angela Lansbury's character in Bedknobs & Broomsticks aka my favorite movie ever. Doesn't she even look a little like Angela Lansbury?? It can also be shortened to "Eggy" which is kind of the best chicken name ever. I'm always singing this song to her though my rendition is a little less dancey.


Oh yeah! Back to projects! I'm also refinishing my sewing chair. This has been my chair since I was about 6 years old, which means it had all kinds of stickers, nail polish, and strange carvings on the surface. I have sanded and primed it, now I'm just trying to add enough coats of this dark grey so that it stops looking blue.


Then we come to cooking! All recipes we used are linked. My boyfriend, cousin, and I successfully made a souffle following a Julia Child recipe. Check out the puffiness!


This was a makeshift breakfast my boyfriend and I put together. The kale and potatoes were leftover from other meals, so we just scrambled eggs with corned beef. Omnomnom!


Then we have salisbury steak, mashed potatoes, and roasted cabbage. The salisbury steak and mashed potatoes were incredible, but the cabbage wasn't, which is bizarre because I absolutely LOVE cabbage. I think I would have liked it more cut smaller because this was difficult to eat. I also might have preferred the taste of the cabbage raw with the same marinade, which I altered and used sesame oil instead of olive oil because sesame oil and cabbage reminds me of Japan.

May LYOF Goal

My goal this month is [not-so] simple. It is something I have never done before. Well, not exactly. I'm going to paint a barn quilt for my chicken coop. That would make it a coop quilt, huh? Oh well. Whatever you call it, I'm going to paint it because I can't spend my life waiting for a barn that might never happen! 

Here is a rough approximation of the color palette I am going for. It is based on one of my favorite outfits. I have a dress in the coral color that is a bit too low cut to wear for teaching. To get around this it gets layered with sports bras. The two sports bras I find myself wanting to couple it with are purple and teal, so bam! Color palette!  

This is the design I have more or less settled on (though don't ask which color will be which!). I think it would make the chickens happy. Side note, chickens can actually see in color, so it is very important to make sure the colors are arranged in a pleasing design. This is a submissions for the Accuquilt contest by Mary Kay Davis. 

So far I have purchased a "2 foot x 2 foot" piece of plywood, taken that back because it was actually 23 and 7/8" x 23 and 7/8", bought a 3' by 3' piece of plywood, picked/purchased paint, used wood filler to fix the knots, sanded it smooth, and painted the background grey color. Here is my blank canvas.

And here it is with the grey background. 

Now that the grey has dried I'm working on marking and taping up the design so I can paint the colors one by one. To finish this on time each color has about a week to get painted, and that will still leave a chunk of time for touchups and/or unforeseen delays (like end of semester grading, and two back-to-back weekends of different friends staying with us).