So my very good friend Donna asked me if I would make her a quilt. And she would pay me.

Ah. No! Been friends with her for about 35 years. I’m not taking money from her!

We finally agreed to a barter. She is an amazing stained glass artist. I said “you make me a cat piece. I will make you a quilt.”

And she did.

It’s hanging in my dining room now. She’s an overachiever. I hadn’t even started her quilt and she delivered my art piece! Love it! A calico cat on a stack of books.

A better photo. Slipped a piece of foam core behind the art.

Now I have to tell you what Donna wanted. A giant chicken.

Really? Yep. She had one several years ago and it disappeared. Possibly one of her kids absconded with it. Or not, anyhow, it was gone. Someone had made it for her and she needed a replacement.

She sent me this picture.

And that’s all I had to work with!

I pulled a lot of ideas from Pinterest and showed them to Donna. She approved.

The day she delivered my art, we went to the local quilt shop, Beyond the Stitches, to pick out fabric. We were really happy to find a fabric that looked like chicken wire from “Loralie” for the background. Her original quilt had small red and yellow flowers on a brown background but she liked an orange dotted fabric from “In the Beginnings” better and we went with that for the wings, crown, and backing.

I drew my version of the chicken out on graph paper.

Then I enlarged the pattern on packing paper and pinned it up on the background fabric.

I used three different methods for applique. The first was the chicken’s head and body. I didn’t want the chicken wire background to show through the body so I made a lining. I traced the pattern onto two pieces of fabric and added a 1/4″ seam allowance. Put the fabric together wrong sides, stitched and turned right side out. Stitched it on the background chicken wire fabric.

Then I did the freezer paper method of appliqué. This was the first time I tried it and I used the tutorial on this blog, Gig’s Thimble, and I loved it! I used it for the crown, wings, and feet.

For the face I used raw-edge applique.

I did a lot of free form doodles for the quilting on the chicken then quilted the background with long straight curves with my walking foot.

I called the quilt “Giant Chicken Dance” because that silly song ran through my head every time I worked on the quilt!

I used a modern black and white print that kind of sort of looked like the chicken wire for the binding.

And I finally presented it to Donna!

She was thrilled with the quilt. Loved the label and what I named it. And then we went to lunch and couldn’t get the chicken dance song out of our heads!