Emerson - A Chicken Story

Back in the spring of this year we added thirteen new members to our menagerie on the farm - a set of bantam chicks. Not ones to do anything in an easy way - we did not get them from the local feed store but instead ordered them through the mail.

One very cold and snowy day in March, we got a call from the post office to come and collect our new babies.  I named this little guy Emerson from one of my favorite book series the Amelia Peabody mysteries by Elizabeth Peters.  He had the lightest coloring so was easy to identify from all the others. 

Of course I took a chance that he would turn out to be a rooster as it is very difficult to tell little boy chicks from little girl chicks.

Chickens grow up very fast and by mid summer he was looking more like a boy.  He is a cochin and sports very beautiful feathers on his toes.

This is what he looks like now that he is all grown up:

Since he will never be a chicken dinner, he had to become a quilt!

He was appliqued 

and then machine quilted on my domestic machine.

I recently was award a grant* to purchase thread and rulers to use on my domestic machine,  It was really wonderful to be able to go to this basket of thread to get just the right color to make Emerson come to life.  

He is currently on display at the Ashe County Arts Council gallery  as part of the Tree Fest show. I am linking this post to Off the Wall Friday by Nina-Marie.

*This project is funded as a cooperative venture of Alleghany Arts Council, Ashe County Arts Council, Watauga Arts Council, and Wilkes Art Gallery with support from a Regional Artist Project Grant of the North Carolina Arts Council, a Division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resource.