The Pioneer Quilter

I finished the owl quilt!  I sent it on to it’s new home Down Under yesterday.  Michelle asked for a label and I asked The Husband to draw a little owl for it but we got our signals crossed and it ended up just being blank.  I hope that is ok, Michelle!  I didn’t want to delay sending it while I waited for him to draw it because I would not have been able to get it to the post office until Saturday…because of the new job!  I started today.  And I survived.  You ever think that even though you’ve been doing something for years and have had success with it that someone is just going to come along and say, ’hey, you are an idiot!’ and that will be the end of it?  That is how I felt about my first day.  And I’ll probably feel like that for awhile. 

So anyway.  Here are the details about the quilt…I did meander quilting in the center.  Originally the center was going to be a pieced background from fat quarters but I didn’t like how that looked and I only had white muslin.  So I tea-dyed it, and darned if it didn’t turn out exactly how I pictured it!  Of course the border is made up of nine patches and I did diagonal quilting across each square.  I love how that ends up looking sort of like an argyle sock.

 You can see in the picture below that the owl’s wings are not sewn down.  I wanted them to be floppy.  And here he is playing peek-a-boo:

Where’s owl?  There he is!  I did kind of a furry quilting around the owls eyes and left some of the fabric unquilted to wrinkle in the wash.  I’m not sure I made the best choice there but I still like how it turned out.

The binding turned out great.  I love doing the ladder-stitch.  It is so easy and does such a great job!

Here is the back.  I did some random piecing of fat quarters and scraps to create it.  I’ve never pieced a back like this before and I’m really amazed at how much I like the effect.  I always thought it was too much work but now I am really glad I tried it.  You can see the different texture of the meander quilting in the blue area of the quilt back there.  BTW, that blue is the reason I bought the fabric collection.  I totally love that shade of blue.  In middle school I had this billowy blue cotton skirt in that shade and I wore it constantly.  It had strategic slits in the side so that when I went down the stairs it puddled behind me like a train.  People were always stepping on it.  It was so awesome.  I wish I still had it!

Michelle, I hope your grandbaby is born happy and healthy and that he or she loves their little quilt!  Thank you to everyone who put a bid in on the auction.  I am blown away by the generosity of people sometimes. 

Oh, and if you want one of your own you can always leave me a comment on episode #30 to win a kit to make one yourself.  I think I will draw the winner for that this weekend, so stay tuned!