Owl Baby Quilt for Haneen's Little Man
On Saturday night I went to a baby shower for my friend, Haneen, who is expecting a little boy. I decided to make her a baby quilt and wanted to create something bright and fun. When I stumbled across Forest Life in Retro by Michael Miller I knew it would be perfect to use in the quilt with its vibrant colors and whimsical animals.
With the Forest Life fabric as my inspiration I quickly sketched out a quilt design of a simple patchwork of squares broken up by a strip across the top. For an extra touch I decided I wanted to add an applique patterned after the owls in the fabric.
I started by digging through my fabric scraps and fat quarters picking out some reds, oranges, yellows, greens and one aqua pattern. Along with some of the Forest Life print, I cut 49 5"x5" squares from my scraps that I had chosen. I arranged them into rows of 7 squares and then joined 2 rows for the top and 5 rows for the bottom of the quilt.
I then cut 2 strips of a coordinating striped fabric at 2" plus a white strip at 5-1/2". I completed joining the quilt together with the two rows of squares on top followed by one of the striped strips, the white strip, the second striped strip and finally the seven rows of squares on the bottom.
With the base of the quilt complete I was ready to make the owl applique. I picked out an owl and branch that I liked from the fabric and then photo copied them, enlarging by 200% to make a pattern.
I used the freezer paper method to make the applique. Using my photo copies as a pattern, I cut out the owl, branch and three leaves from freezer paper with shiny side of the paper face down. I then laid the freezer paper, shiny side face up on the wrong side of the fabric I was using and trimmed the fabric to 1/4" around the freezer paper. Folding the edges of the fabric around the pattern I ironed the fabric to the freezer paper, cutting slits in the fabric when necessary to ease around the edges.
I placed my applique pieces on the quilt and used my iron again to temporarily tack the pieces in place and then used a blind stitch to permanently attach them. Once the appliques were sewn onto the quilt I turned the quilt over, carefully cut away the center of the area behind the applique and then pulled the freezer paper out.
I basted the quilt top to the batting with the Forest Life print for the quilt back and then quilted it with a straight pattern on either side of the seams. I completed the quilt by adding brown binding around the edges.
Haneen really liked the quilt and I hope that her little man enjoys snuggling in it.
This was my first time doing a freezer paper applique and it was really easy and fun, plus I think it turned out cute. I will definitely have to try it again sometime.
If you are interested, check out some of my other baby quilts: Alphabet Quilt, Pastel Patchwork Quilt, Neutral Diamond Quilt, Pink Stack Quilt and Doll Bed with Bedding and Patchwork Quilt
Monday, May 20, 2013 at 8:01AM | Posted by Lisa | 6 Comments | Share Article | Email Article | Print Article 
Reader Comments (6)
You are amazingly talented Lisa! Beautiful quilt!
Linda- Thank you so much!
Absolutely adorable! I'm in awe about how simple you make things seem (when I know that, at least for me, they're not!). Beautiful!
Sandy- Thank you! You are so sweet!
Allo,
Could I use the shape of our orange owl for my quilt, please ?
this quilts are looking so much attractive and it seems that any baby will love to snuggle onto it. But you didn't tell anything about the pricing of it or costing. Btw, I got another site where they listed some things like that. you may also love Kids point