The chicken fabric in this project was the only piece that didn’t start life with us as a remnant. It was deeply discounted, but technically it was not a remnant. To honor this ‘high status’ I started out by trying to make an abstractly designed ‘strip quilt’ which is so popular right now. I tried combining the ‘chicken strips’ with other strips I had cut to create a dynamic and pleasing visual pattern. This whole idea flopped. Repeatedly. I put away all of the strips I had cut and moved on to a different project. A few months later I came across the strips again and it hit me: why not use these as ‘realistic’ chicken strips? This idea married immediately, given the remnants I had on hand, with the idea of a ‘play’ not only on the popularity of the modern strip quilt but on the popularity of the classical union of red and white in quilts. So, I gave myself a background of white spandex, and placed my ‘real’ chicken strips into a red microsuede basket and gave the whole thing a red microsuede backer. Still, it needed a lift. I added a thin white cotton blend layer to serve as the paper basket liner, which had the added effect of creating more depth in the work. Recognizing it still needed just a touch more flair, I added a saucer of brown pleather filled with cotton blend spicy mustard dipping sauce. The work is edged in acrylic yarn and stitched in several colors of embroidery thread to accent the golden ‘crust’ on the chicken strips. All stitching is hand done. The hanger is of curly maple, hand rasped, and finished with Danish oil. The quilt is attached with embroidery thread strung with glass beads for one last splash of color. The quilt measures 22” x 22” and the curly maple hanger is 30” long.