I am definitely getting my money's worth out of Elizabeth Hartman's Fancy Forest Pattern. This year I think I've made 6 separate quilts using the pattern or parts of the pattern, and I haven't made the big full size one yet - that's for 2018! This is yet another quilt using the Allie Owl block. Back when I made an Allie Owl baby quilt using just 3 owl blocks, not-so-subtle hints were made by my mother-in-law that she would like one. And then I found the absolute perfect fabric. It's called Feathers and Letters and is by Indigo Fabrics. It's not a make of fabric I'd ever come across before or since, but it was just so perfect that I trusted the shop that was selling it and ordered 3 metres.
In our family, a feather symbolises my late father-in-law, and the colours in this fabric were just so.... Linda! I selected the fabrics for the owls based on the colours in this print. I was pleasantly surprised to find that a bundle of Shot Cottons seemed to match in perfectly. I;m not really a fan of shot cottons - they don't ever seem quite right for my projects, so to find them sitting beautifully in this project made me very happy.
I made up all of the blocks at our North East Modern Quilt Guild retreat in mid-October. I used the living room floor of the cottage we stayed in to wrangle and attempt to pattern match the feathers - isn't it annoying when you finally unfold the piece of fabric to discover that the directionality goes the opposite direction to what you expected. I small tweak of the design and I had a quilt top.
Basting this quilt was hard. I baste all my quilts at a Monday night quilt group, because they have the space. Unfortunately, my mother-in-law goes to the same group. So there was a delay while I waited for her to bugger off on holiday! Luckily she did and I spent an hour grovelling on the floor - she also normally helps me baste, so it was a one-man job this time round. The backing is a bright pink sheet!
I quilted it with an all over stipple: larger scale in the background, smaller scale around the owls.It's bound with a dark purple that wouldn't clash with the border of the owls or the backing! I finished the quilt early in December, but can only show you now that it has been gifted!
This is a finish from my Quarter 4 Finish Along list.
Comments
Your quilt is amazing.