Foxes and Chickens

My newest pattern is out.  I chose the subject because I have friends who adore foxes.  I've even seen one in my yard.  I guess he didn't like it here since I only saw him once in the seven years we've been living here in Southeastern Pennsylvania.  Click on the photo to see a larger image. This quilt is 35" x 32".  Yours made from this pattern could be a different size or shape depending on how you combine the blocks.
Foxes are beautiful animals but they have mean streaks.  I read when they get into a chicken coop, they kill all the chickens.  I guess killing is a sport to them.  My cat does the same thing, one mouse at a time.

This quilt is raw edge stitched and has hand embroidery in the backgrounds where I drew flowers and trees. In my quilt,  the chickens are on the outside, creating tension.

 I tried to keep the hand embroidered flowers in scale with the foxes.  It is amazing how many you can draw with pearl cotton embroidery thread if you break down the flowers you see in your yard into French knots, satin stitch, straight stitch, chain stitch, and Feather stitch.  These are all basic stitches.

The border quilting is based on the noxious plant, the Poke weed.  The berries become purple when they are ripe and the birds love them.

This fox is thread painted to get the texture of his fur.

The backgrounds of the blocks were machine quilted on my home sewing machine.

This chicken portrait cornerstone was raw edge stitched.  Each color is on top of the main color (black and white for this chicken).  Everything is fused together before the raw edge stitched was done.