A Finish - “Owls of a Feather…"

You might remember some time ago I wrote about repurposing some gingham squares I had in my stash box for nearly 2 years!  When you run out of steam on a project and the original idea really isn’t worth it it’s ok in my book to make it into something else!



I finally finished my donation quilt!  The pattern is from creative Patchwork magazine by Sally Ablett and is designed for a pack of 5” charm squares.  Sally cleverly uses blank spaces to spread the squares out a bit with two borders and a skinny strip to frame the quilt.  If you have a spare lonely charm pack lying around you might try this one out! 

I had a stack of squares I had cut up for a double bed quilt and I was bored with just sashing them and joining them together, so they become this lovely quilt which I’m calling Owls of a Feather because of the cute fabric on the back.  (Honestly I couldn’t think of a name for this one and it was the best I could come up with!)



The main body of the quilt was quilted with gentle curves (Clamshell pattern).  This was my first time trying this pattern and it would have gone better if I had given myself some marked lines to stay within.  I eyeballed it across the quilt and they are not the most even of shapes but it does give a really nice texture to the quilt.  Next one will be better!

I quilted the two outside borders in figure of 8 and had a bit of difficulty turning the corners.  Little stars in the skinny border finished it off and though the quilting isn’t perfect yet, (stops and starts I need to practice), I really like how it turned out and I was definitely getting better by the time I got to the end of the quilt!
 


Of course all of this was done before I attended a Free Motion Quilting Class and saw Rachel @ Stitched in Color’s tutorial on figure of 8 quilting!  I love this quilting pattern and Rachel explains it brilliantly.  I quilted mine right to left and Rachel does hers from top to bottom.  If you want to try it yourself Rachel’s tutorial is here on her blog.

As this will be used by kids and may get washed a lot I sewed the binding down by hand and also machine stitched along the inside just in case!

You do get a line of stitching on the back but it's almost invisible on the front.  Probably unnecessary but made me feel better.  



For now this has been posted off and I still have another 70 or so gingham squares left in the box!  The fabric used was Moda Bella White, Kona Azure, Kona Peacock for the binding and I think the cream was Ikea!  Measures approx 65” x 65”.

As this was a FAL goal I'm linking up to The Littlest Thistle, the Library Project, and the Friday Finishes.  
Crazy Mom Quilts and