Christmas 2010 - The Owl Quilt

I decided in late summer that I wanted to quilt something for my parents as part of their Christmas gift this year.  At first I thought it would be nice to make them a quilt for their bed, but then realized that tackling a queen sized quilt as my second quilt ever might not be the smartest thing to do.  Luckily, I had some great fabrics in my stash that I had been wanting to use.  First up, I decided to make a wall-hanging sized quilt for my dad using two Japanese owl fabrics that he had picked up for me on a trip to Tokyo earlier this year (see below).

Owl Fabrics from Japan

I actually picked the fabric and the pattern to use simultaneously because they just seemed to go together.  The pattern is from Last Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts, which is a really fun book.  The pattern uses log-cabin blogs placed into a simple pattern of only two fabrics.  I deviated a bit from the design in the book because I wanted to make mine a bit smaller, so I reduced the overall size of each block.  I used 6.5-inch blocks and placed them in a 6 by 6 pattern so that the finished quilt is about 36 inches square.  Here's a photo of some of the pieced blocks:

Pieced Log Cabin Blocks (Almost Finished)

After I finished piecing the blocks, I had to decide on how to lay them out.  I didn't realize it before, but using these log cabin blocks is still very versatile when you put them all together.  Here are two patterns I was considering:

This first layout is very similar to the one in the book and I immediately loved it.  It kind of makes me think of a sunburst or something.  The other idea I thought of was the one below, but to be honest, I didn't really like this layout at all.  It doesn't seem very interesting - it's way too symmetrical, but I thought it was pretty cool that the same 36 blocks could make a completely different look just be rearranging the blocks!  This made me much more excited about quilting in general!

In the end, I decided on my first gut-instinct, which was to use the layout from the book.

For quilting, I followed the lines bordering the red and cream fabrics and I used matching thread so that the quilting itself never really shows very much.  A photo of the finished quilt, along with some closeups, is shown below.  The backing fabric was just a simple pattern of small black and white flowers on red - it had a Japanese feel to it.  Overall, I'm pretty happy with the results and I think my dad liked it too, which is all that matters!

The front of the finished quilt.

Closeup with Back

Look at the sweet owls!