Winter Journaling

I haven't made a proper "journal quilt" for quite some time, but my group has its monthly meeting tonight. (This is my favorite day of the month - is that a poor reflection on me? Too bad.) Our (ostensible) topic for this month was "winter" which kind of had me stumped...until I remembered that I recently announced my intentions to do some Charley Harper re-creations this year. I pulled out the great holiday card that my bird-watching friend Taryn sent out this year, and here's what I came up with:

I am in love with this little beauty (and with Harper's artwork, in general)! The pieces are all fused and machine-stitched. The white fabrics all have just a tiny hint of sparkle - the snow on the birdbath is a scrap of snowflake felt, the snow on the leaves is from scraps of the wedding favors I made for my cousin's shower last year, and the surrounding background fabric is a chunk of fairy frost I had in the stash. I made the tiny little circle jump rings myself from some craft wire - that was the trickiest part, because I don't really have proper jewelry-making supplies, but it still worked. The snowflakes are cheap, round, plastic beads from a kit in my son's craft box, but I really liked their chunky effect on this little piece. Like all journal quilts, this one is 8.5 x 11". The best part is, it actually snowed today for the first time this year - huzzah for winter!!