The Owl

When I started packing to move from Georgia to Kentucky in April of 2008, I needed some hand work so I could stay busy even after I packed most of my sewing room for the move. For some time I have tried to cut up scraps - into various sizes: 2" strips, 3"x6" pieces and 4"x4" squares. By no means do I always get around to this, but it feels as if when I do, there is a greater chance I will actually be able to use the scraps for a quilt some day. I had bought the owl panel a while back, and decided to start piecing some of the 2" strips around it. So I just kept out the strips and some hand sewing materials and packed the rest of the sewing room.

When I started, I think I had imagined it as a throw or something along those lines, but when it was suddenly quite large, I made a queen sized quilt. The top is entirely hand pieced.
For the back I used this old Marimekko fabric which still looks remarkably fresh and which has particular sentimental value for me. For years this was a curtain which hang in front of some storage shelves in the basement of my parents' house where I grew up. I am pretty sure that it was there when I lived there some 30+ years ago so it is indeed old! When my parents left to move to a smaller and newer house in mid-2008, they let me and my siblings have various things they could or would not move. Because of the distance, I obviously could not take much, but did get this fabric.

The quilt was machine quilted by Regina Carter - who did some extra magic with it because the top was very wavy and by no means straight. Apparently I made it grow too much as I worked on it by hand and never measured anything, so it was not at all flat any longer! You wold never know that now by looking at it. She's awesome.