Hoot Hoot

I think I'm *slightly* obsessed with owls. My finger always hovers over the "add to cart" button when I see owl fabric, I recently won a pattern for a hand-sewn owl and I own a few owl prints, including this new one that came with the latest fabric order:


So when I started working on my "to quilt" list, based on some of the quilts I feel inspired by, I decided to begin with a baby quilt in a similar style to this one made by Anne of Film and Thread.

Interestingly, this quilt also inspired my Imagination 1 quilt - weird, I know!

The inspiration was obviously limited to the quilt not being symmetrical/mirrored in any way.

My version began like this, with whacky stacked coins :) I used all the bluish charms I had left from the MODA Love You charmpack after making the Green Love You quilt.

Next I tried to decide between putting a bird on the open space (like Anne did) or an elephant - for some reason I like elephants on fabrics as well.

But I noticed that one of the Love You prints has owls on it - Bingo!

I cut out the shapes on regular paper to see what it would look like.


Then I picked some patterns to match the charms, cut the shapes out with ~1/4" seam added. I didn't pin anything, just held the pattern in place and either used a rotary cutter or scissors to cut the shapes out - I'm not that fussy in some things, amazingly :)

Now it was time to see how to do the hand-applique, haven't done that since the soccer quilt and the apple worm quilt, really!

I thought this would be a good project for the bee, since I wouldn't have to lug my machine around. However, it's proven extremely difficult setting up a time to meet for 4 different people. Who would have thought... just four people ;) So the other night I started on this and ended up doing the entire owl while watching a good, serious movie called The Life Of Words.

I began attaching the black pupils to the white eyes using, I guess, the "proper" applique stitch. It looks messy on the back, and I didn't really like how that stitch worked with the rounded edge of a small (approx. 1" diameter) circle.


So I switched to the hidden stitching I use for the binding, liked that much better - and see how neat that looks!


Here you can see the look of the pupils. Admittedly, they look a bit messy partly because I clipped the edges, seeing if that makes the folding-under of fabric easier (it didn't).
You can also see that I didn't bother marking any seam allowances, ironing seams or doing paper shapes, I just placed, did the first stitch, and folded under - stitched - folded under etc etc :)


I finger pressed what looked like a scant 1/4" on straight or straightish seams like the wings and the big body shape.


And here we go, one owl coming right up :) It's on my knees, hence it looks all wobbly :)


I'm planning to embroider or quilt some claws on once I've attached the branch, and also give the little HootHootOwl some hairy ears ;) Funfunfun!!