Blogger's Quilt Festival Entry

Okay, I've decided to take a deep breath, ignore all the mistakes on my quilt--my third one--and enter my Hoot Hoot Owl quilt in the Blogger's Quilt Festival in the small quilts category. Thank you, Amy, for hosting the Festival. I have seen sooo many beautiful quilts

I love my Hoot Hoot Owl quilt despite its mistakes or maybe because of them. I have learned a lot making this quilt and with each quilt, I learn more.

I had the help of one very unhappy cat (because I kept trying to move her) while making this quilt, which is why I have diagonals and not diamonds for the quilting. The process was quilt, move cat, quilt, move cat. She now has her own quilted cat pad, which I would enter, but all the points are off center--it was for the cat and she didn't care. You can see the cat pad here if you are interested.

The pattern is from the makeitModern 2013 BHG magazine. Lots of great quilt patterns in that magazine. I just changed the color scheme because this is for a little girl who likes pink. I stitched in the ditch (getting better, but not great) around "most" of the appliqué, which was done by machine. Then straight-stitched white window panes in the blue and diagonals in the pink. 

For the first time ever, I buried my threads--shocking to me that I did that. I machine stitched the binding using an embroidery stitch with a multi-colored Mettler thread. For the rest of the quilt I used white Aurifil, 50 wt.

Looking faded out in the sun--I have to work on my photography skills also.

The back of the quilt. I swear it is much prettier than it looks in this photo--see the note above re my photography skills.

Thanks for looking at my entry. Here's to seeing new quilts and getting new inspiration!

Hoot Hoot Quilt Done!

YEAH! I finally finished the Hoot Hoot quilt that I started on so long ago, and I actually have a little time to blog about it. I learned a couple of things on this quilt.

1. If you have a large applique and use fusible web to add it to the quilt, cut out the big parts and only fuse the edges. The owl is stiff.
2. I think I know how to bury threads now, BUT do I need to knot the threads before I bury them? I didn't, so there may be a problem down the line.

I did the binding by machine using a decorative stitch. I am pretty sure you will be able to see the basting stitches if the edge puckers up. I thought about adding a straight stitch along the edge, but this is for a little girl to nap with, play with, and generally do whatever with, so in the end I don't think the edges matter so much. :-)

Hope you enjoy the photos.

Hoot, Hoot: An Owl Quilt

The pattern is from a 2013 special issue from Better Homes and Gardens --  makeitModern. Great patterns in the book, but I don't think it is in stores now. I did find a copy online if you are interested.

For my quilt, I chose different colors because I "sort of" never like to do exactly what is in a pattern. I love the colors in this quilt and how the ovals look a little like feathers on the owl's wings. If you look closely at the wings, you will see that I didn't cut properly, but this is not a show quilt, but one made with love for a little 3-year old girl. I'm pretty sure that show quilts are NOT in my future.

Getting better at appliqué, but my corners are NOT good and I still stray a little too far from the edges on occasion, but I am getting better. I also forgot to mention that I was sooo careful to make sure the bottom edge, which was supposed to be the wider edge, was in place, then STILL appliqued topsy-turvy--though I guess if I hadn't told you that, you wouldn't know it. Still get slightly irritated at myself when I look at it. I am consoling myself with the thought that the windowsill is low enough for a little girl to lean out and look for real owls. I know that makes no sense, but it is what it is.

Still have about 9,750 hours to reach the magic 10,000 hour expert status.