Louie - Project Quilting

"Louie," 23" x 13", made for Project Quilting, Season 6, Challenge 6: Isn't That Charming, Mar. 2015 in Yellow Springs, Ohio

Challenge recap for  "Isn't That Charming":

This weeks we're using "Charms" which are 5" squares of fabric. If you don't have a set of charm squares in your stash, you can cut your own 5" squares from any fabric you choose.

1. The entire right front side of your project must be constructed using charm squares. The only exception is the binding. It can be cut from yardage along with backings, linings, etc, that will not show on the right front side of your project.
2. You must use at least 20 charm squares.
3. The charms squares can be cut and manipulated in any way you choose.

I actually have some batik charm squares. I sorted through them and found 16 that had either brown, a blue-ish gray, or both, then I cut four charms from other brown fabric that I had.

I cut 19 of the charm squares in half giving me 38 pieces cut 2.5" x 5". I arranged them, and rearranged them, then rearranged them some more until I came up with a layout that I was satisfied with. The final charm, the darkest brown, was cut into 17 smaller pieces and was inset into every other piece.

The set on the right are sewn together with a piece of yarn couched to either the right or left side of the inset piece.

Here's a close-up of the yarn, which is brown with some gold twisted in it.

Once I got it all pieced I basted it then quilt stitch-in-the-ditch. But there was something missing, so I decided to sleep on it. The next morning I decided what it needed was an owl. I'd just finished doing some graphic design for some interpretive signs for the Glen Helen Raptor Center, so perhaps I just had owls on the brain.

This is Louie, a barn owl and one of the resident raptors. I immediately noticed that the coloring in him was the same brown and grayish blue that was in the background of the quilt. I got permission to use the photo and the next step was to make an owl using fabric pieces smaller than 5" square.

TheT body is fused to the background but before fusing the head I stitched inside his head to indicate the feathers that are more obvious in his face than in the rest of his body.

I also couched some off-white hand-woven yarn around the heart shape in is face. After I added the binding, I couched the same off-white yarn around the binding edge.

More about Louie

=   =   =

Click on any of the photos to see larger images.

To read more about Project Quilting, go here.

To see other entries for this challenge, visit the Isn't That Charming link up. (Louie came in second in the People's Choice voting!)