Owl Art Quilt - Final - "Hootie"

This is a continuation of 2 previous posts about the making of the owl art quilt, ad the final one of "Hootie".

I decided to paint the owl since there were so many tiny little pieces in its breast feathers.  The process was the same that I've used in previous quilts, which is basically a paint by number technique.  I made sure to shade the outside edges of the owl to make it look more like it was in the shadow of the tree, and also shaded the tree itself.  I also decided to add the moss around the hole, instead of just the left and right top.

The owl got a lightweight stuffing underneath it and the edges were glued to the backside.

The tree got two layers of batting underneath it to give the whole piece more depth and the moss was placed on the edges of the tree.

It was lightly quilted and bound with traditional binding to match the tree color.  It measures 15-1/2" W x 20" H.

I hope you like it!

Owl Art Quilt - Part Two

This is a continuation of a previous post about the making of the owl art quilt.  I sent my concept picture to my sister for her review.  It was the wrong type of owl!  So she sent me a recent picture of "Owlie" who is still living around Wellton, Alaska. 

Here is the revised picture with the right owl in it:

I traced the picture and intended to take it to a copy shop to enlarge, but then decided that I could do this simple enlargement at home.  

I painted the background fabric (the tree) by first gluing tissue paper to muslin, and tinting it with acrylic paint.  

Then I made some moss with yarn, thread, and wool roving.  It was formed on a base of tulle covered with Solvay, stitched with green thread, rinsed, and dried.  I even put some of the real owl's feathers into the moss.  When the moss dried, it had a realistic texture.

I placed some plain black fabric underneath the tree, moss and sketch of the owl.  It seemed like it was too high up in the hole in the tree, so I moved the owl down a little bit.  

Next, I worked on the owl to be placed in the hole.  See the next blog on the final art quilt.  I think you'll like it!

Owl Art Quilt - part One

My sister sent me photos of an owl near her property in Alaska and some of it's feathers a few years back.  I sketched it up and had plans to make it when I was doing a lot of nest art quilts.  Well, other quilts and plans got scooted in front of it and, before I knew it, it had fallen off my list of quilts to make.  Guess I got tired of seeing it week after week, month after month, and year after year on the list.  Best to start with a fresh list and not beat myself up about unfinished projects, even if they had never been started.  My thinking is that is what a sketch book is for - ideas that you might use some day.  Here were my sketches back then:

Since all of my outside activities with friends and family got cancelled due to the continued surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths, I had time to get this project kicked back to the top of the list.  I didn't like any of my original sketches, so I hunted on Pinterest and the internet for more ideas.  It's pretty neat to be able to print them out and paste them into your sketch book.  (Do you know how to do a print screen on your computer?  Just hit Alt+PrtSc, which puts the image into your clipboard.  Then, in a word document, hit paste, and there it is.  From there, just treat it as one picture, which you can crop and move around.)

In the end, I liked the owl looking out from a nest in the tree.  And I liked another picture of an owl.  So, I imported them both into Photoshop and merged the two images.  Here it is printed out:

I decided to make it about 18" tall and paint some fabric again!  It was so much fun on the hiking art quilt!  

Stay tuned for more on this art quilt!

Pets helping me (?) make quilts

We have a cat and a dog now and both like it best when I give them my undivided attention.  When I don't, they make it so that I can't ignore them.

Here's our dog anchoring a quilt that I was attempting to sew a label on.

Here's our cat preening on top of my cutting table with a quilt underneath him that I was trying to trim.

And here they both are in the morning as I was trying to sip my coffee and read the paper.

I think I need a bigger house. Or least a bigger chair!

Charity Quilt #7 using 2-1/2" strips and 6" blocks

This quilt was made with scraps donated to our charity group from a local bicycle skirt manufacturer.  I added some fabric from my stash to give it a little more tropical feel.  It started with 6" blocks and 2-1/2" strips.  The 2-1/2" strips were sewn together into super long strip sets (the pink and the black).  They were sewn to one side of the 6" block, pressed and trimmed.  And finally, the strip set was sewn to the other side of the 6" block, giving me 10" squares.  The quilt is 57-1/2" x 67".

I hope that somebody will love this quilt when they get it from our charity group!

Mariner's Compass and Pickle Dish Quilt - All Done!

This is the final installment of the Mariner's Compass and Pickle Dish Quilt.  I wrote so many blogs about the making of this quilt, and many of them probably showed my frustration with this very challenging pattern.  But, like most of my quilts, I loved it in the end.

Su Holmes quilted this one for me on her longarm machine.  She used a digital pattern called "Spiral Maze" designed by Krista Withers, who is a friend of mine from Seattle.  Krista used to do quilting for me and many of my friends in Seattle and Sammamish, but quit doing that and instead is designing modern digital quilting patterns.  I loved her work then and love her designs now!    

And thanks to Su, I now have a finished quilt.  It's 90" x 90" and I named it "In a Pickle".

I hope you love it too!

January charity quilts #6- Rock Star

 I've fallen in love with the book "Charm School" by Vanessa Goertzen.  This quilt that I made for our charity group is called Rock Star.  Vanessa made her quilt 69" x 81"; mine is 61" x 73".

It was really fun to pull out some of my old Hawaiian fabric to go with the donated fabric scraps by a local bicycle skirt manufacturer.  I used the same scraps cut into 2-1/2" strips for the outside border.

I hope you like it!