Iron Craft ’15 Challenge #18 – Chicken in the Kitchen

I got this great printed panel at Broadway Quilts in Sonoma. They call it Chickens in the Kitchen, by Alexander Henry. I really liked it and thought I should get one. Mine is in the red family, but they also come in charcoal gray and white. To me, this looks like it was inspired by the art of Molas.
Here is the whole thing in all of it’s glory:

I will tell you how I made this chicken – I followed the exact directions printed on the panel.

That is the top half. I’ll save the bottom half for when you buy the panel, but suffice it to say that I followed their instructions. Except two things…

First, it threw me off that there was a lovely marked seam allowance on all of the top part of the chicken, but not on the bottom. I didn’t recognize this dilemma until I was cutting the second side, so there was no going back then. I DID see the issue coming when I cut the bottom oval, so I left an allowance. (I think this made things WAY more difficult, to have seam allowance on one and not on the other. So just plan ahead.)

Second, I wanted this bird/door stop/pillow to be washable, but if you put cardboard in it you will need to pull it apart for the wash and reassemble it. So instead, I made the bottom oval out of a sheet of quilters’ template plastic.

You can see the layout here. (Please note that I had only cut the bottom very roughly in this photo. I trimmed the oval piece to make it even before I attached it. )

Here is how the bottom finished up.

Here is a detail of the stitching I added to the comb.

There is my finished Chicken! They say if you want to use her as a door stop, just add a weight such as a rock to the bottom before you close her up. (This would lead to a problem when you wash it. You could always make a velcro pocket on the bottom and let the rock/sand in and out through there.) Mine is not going to hold a door open, but it is not wobbling like a weeble. She is stable and stands nicely.

Happy Crafting.