The Owlwedge Quilt

So… After it took me somewhere around 3 years to complete my first quilt, because I just had to make a queen size one and then hand quilt each little piece.  I figured I probably wouldn’t make another one.  Well, never say never.  I present to you the Owlwedge quilt.

I did a few things differently this time around.  The first thing I did, was actually have an idea of what the finished product was going to look like.  I saw this pattern on Fon’s & Porter’s Love of Quilting, which is this cute little public television quilting show that is actually quite enjoyable to watch.  I was hankering to do another quilt, one that was more useable than the first one.   (Side Note: The first one, what with it’s years of work and hand quilting, is relegated to the reading/guest room (put away when guests arrive) and pretty much pampered, because I’m not sure how to wash it and the backing fabric is white.  Eek!)

So for my second quilt I wanted a work horse.  I wanted a top I could quickly piece.  I wanted to use batiks.  I wanted a set of darker fabrics.  I wanted the back to be a darker fabric as well.  And there was no way on this green earth I was hand quilting it, so I knew it was destined for the longarm.  And voila!

Things I learned with this quilt.

1. Having a pattern is a good thing, it lets you order the write amount of fabric and stuff.
2. I ordered all my fabric online from fabric.com.  Ordering batiks over the internet is, well,.. you might be surprised by what you get.  I was pretty sure I didn’t order any browns.  I tried to stick with blues, purples and greens.  To be fair, a good portion of the brown you see in the pic above was bluish green.
3. Wedge and other angled pieces do need to be offset just slightly when piecing so that they aren’t all caddywampus.  It didn’t matter much for this quilt but it will matter for my next project.
4. Having the quilt quilted by a longarm quilter is awesome.  Having same said quilter prepare and attached the binding to the front of the quilt is even awesomer!  <— that is totally a word.  The quilt was quilted by Sally Howard of the Quilting Cottage.
5. I really need to make my stitches bigger when I secure the binding to the backside of the quilt.  For some reason my default is about an eighth of an inch.  So not only did it take forever, I think I pulled a hand muscle!  Who does that?  I do apparently.
6. Hilarious backing fabric, even if it doesn’t totally match the colors on the front of the quilt, is worth it if it makes you smile.

And finally, what quilt would be complete without an arty picture of it.

I never thought I would be a quilter.  Turns out I was wrong.  Next project is a Carpenter’s Star, don’t expect it anytime soon.