Here’s the finished Charlie Harper © “Bird Architects” with the Prairie Style Blocks quilt. I’m really pleased with how it all came together.

I was initially baffled about how I was going to quilt the symmetrical prairie style blocks and the large fussy cut bird blocks. I ended stitching in the ditch between the large blocks and around the bars and central diamond in the prairie blocks. Then I switched to a pale yellow thread and stitched long lines like sunbeams across the quilt catching all the bird blocks and bits of the prairie blocks.

I did those long stretches of walking foot stitches along stripes of painters tape stuck to the quilt. I’ve used in in previous quilts for diagonal stitching and it works beautifully. Just be careful to stitch alongside the tape, not through it!

Two tips if you want to give stitching along painters tape a try.

Don’t try to apply more than 2 strips at a time. The strips tend to lift off the quilt and stick to each other when you are quilting.
Apply the tape, stitch the quilt, and promptly remove the tape. It’s a stitch-and-go technique. Even when used for painting, the tape isn’t supposed to stay on the wall for long periods.

Painters tape on the quilt, providing guideline for stitching on the diagonal.

I was amused when my birdy field-line English Springer Spaniel took a liking to this quilt!

My Springer napping on the quilt while I was basting it

The back of the quilt…with my field Springer photo-bombing the shot!

(The Charlie Harper © “Bird Architects” fabric I used is apparently no longer available by the yard on The Charlie Harper Art Studio website but some may be found “in the wild” with an internet search).

The Pairie Style Blocks are “Cross 7” from the Electric Quilt 8 Block Library.