Owl Quilt: The Process

When Betty announced owl as our subject for this past round, I almost immediately sat down and sketched out this owl.  Those are 1/4" hexies.  Not particularly practical!

1/2"  hexies are much more practical. :)

I found this panel at a local thrift store.  $1.00.  I used the wing parts to make the central feather hexies.

I also didn't exactly follow my original sketch.  I decided to do a Great Horned Owl.  We actually have a nesting pair in our woods.  I've seen one of the owls, once.  We do hear them a lot starting in Feb/March.  They are early nesters.

The browns are a couple of batiks. The branch is a Nancy Crow print.  You can see in the next couple of pictures how I played around with color and placement.  Each hexie is pinned to a portable ironing surface.

Here is a shot of how I pieced, in rows!

It was E's brilliant idea to make black hexie shapes for the inside of the eyes.

A back shot, all pieced, but before the papers were removed.

I appliqued the owl to a piece of blue linen.  It was sort of serendipity.  The linen was left over from Mr. Riley's Renaissance Faire pants.  It happened to be laying out.

Basted.

 The small spirals were just obvious to do.

 After quilting, it was still too big, so I zigzagged the edges, and washed and dried it in hot.  It was a total chance.  And generally, I don't make plans to wash my art quilts.  Fortunately it shrunk more than an inch and gave a wonderful texture.  Unfortunately still too big.  I trimmed as close as possible, and went with it.

 I put the handy corner pockets on the back.  The binding was still cut at 2", but I took a very small seam allowance and turned the rest to the back.