For Owen, with Love
Saving the best for last…
As I look back on 2021, I don’t have a large portfolio of finished quilts to reflect on. But there is one very special quilt that I designed, that I am happy to share with you all. 2021 brought many challenges to us, and not everything always balances out in the ‘quilts I finished’ list. But this one is called, simply - Owen’s quilt.
Owen is the last of the grands to join us, and he arrived in September. His quilt was one I thought a lot about in the months leading up to his birth. Actually, in the years leading up to it, because this was a quilt I wanted to make for his brother Henry, when he arrived 3 years ago. I ‘chickened’ out on that earlier quilt, and went with a pattern already on the market.
It all started with the fabric, bought at a show, over a decade earlier.
I am a sucker for beautiful fabric, and there was something about this particular combination of blues and browns that just screamed Pearl boy to me.
I bought it and tucked it away in my little kids bin and held onto it for years.
I’d almost destashed it, or used it for a charity project several times…but I couldn’t.
Fabric Love
Henry’s mom had picked out a theme of nature - she painted a birch tree in the nursery…so I went with this modern interpretation of a fox and a raccoon.
The pattern is called Fox and Friends by Sew Fresh Quilts, and it worked with the fabric.
When Owen was coming - and we did know he was Owen - I went back to the pile of triangles. I wanted to use them, but I also wanted to do something different - to play with the design idea that I’d had but never used for Henry. A family tree of sorts would be a perfect idea for a baby quilt.
And (as with a lot of my quilts), it started with a sparkly background.
Welcome…
Hi, I’m Linda Pearl - quilter, teacher, designer and blogger, and I’m happy to have you here. I’d like to tell you a little bit more About Me…
I’ve moved to You Tube!
Every Tuesday at noon, I do a LiveStream on my new You Tube channel for One Quilting Circle. I’d love for you to come see the latest content!
PDF pattern now available!
These 9 fabrics were not part of the original fabric pull, but they worked as a background. I put the scraps from the original pull aside - don’t worry, they have been well used.
I simply took the oversized 9 patch from the photo above and created a disappearing 9 patch effect to give the background some movement.
I really liked it…
Once I had the background, I knew where I wanted to go, but no sure idea how to draft the tree that goes up the left hand side of the quilt. I applied some fusible to a large piece of the brown fabric and tacked it loosely to the background so that I could consider my options. Once it was pinned in place, I outlined what I wanted with a chalk pencil for the trunk and the branches. And began ‘trimming’ the edges of the trunk. I knew this quilt would have leaves - and the leaves played an important part in this.
I call this Barren Tree…it definitely needed several (dozen) leaves…
There was a LOT of threadwork in this quilt when I finished it…but I was definitely happy with the result. It’s similar to his brother’ quilts, but it has a whole different vibe to it. And this quilt is the one where I stopped being afraid of meandering.
My Daughter in law once again used a similar palette for Owen’s room…and I knew that Owen’s character was going to be am owl.
And remember I said I worked in those scraps from the original fabric pull? Yes, I did - I turned them into the scrappy binding for this piece. There’s a lot of bias in that strip, but for a binding, it worked.
Off to work on the list of UFOs for the year…not much has changed, as it turns out.
HNY to all of you. I’ll be back next week with a more conventional format.
-Linda