Owl Quilt-Along Panel Assembly Tutorial

There's a hurricane south of us and the school system is excessively cautious, so I lost quite a bit of my work day Friday to time with my kiddos. I could have let them do what they wanted while I tried to power through and work on this post, but instead we had some fun. I have to admit, with both parents working on a relatively new small business, sometimes fun family time is hard to come by.

We've just got a bit of rain and wind so far. No damage, but I still expect  lower areas here to get some flooding. Though it's been far more gentle of a rain than we had expected. My thoughts do go out to those closer to the coast in South and North Carolina.

On with the tutorial! First, remember this is a "relaxed quilt along," The main focus will be free motion quilting the actual owl panels, so if you are short on time, feel free to just use the panel as-is. If you want a bigger quilt, feel free to do your own arrangement of panel and other fabrics. I think the squares will make excellent pillows or bag sides as well, if you'd like a smaller project.

You will need:

one Boho Owl panel

1/2 yard each of two coordinating fabrics (actual fabric use is about 1/3 yard, but you will likely need a smidgen more for squaring up)

1/4 yard for cornerstones

Optional: outer border fabric

I wanted to make use of the print to the outsides of the blocks so I incorporated it as a border. 

First step is to cut carefully 1/4 inch to the outside of the magenta frame around the blocks on 3 sides, and 4-1/2 inches away from either the left or right sides to keep that outer print. You will have two blocks with the outer print to the right and two with it to the left.

From two coordinating prints, you will need to cut eight 2-1/2 inch strips by 16-1/2 inches. It is important to note that this is not the final length of these strips! The digitally printed squares are not 16 inches square, and vary in that measurement depending on horizontal or vertical. We'll trim them down later.

Next, cut nine 4-1/2 inch squares from a third fabric for the cornerstones. 

Sew your strips in pairs, long sides together. Press to the dark side. Then trim them down to match the actual length or width of the blocks.  Leaving them at 16 inches long and easing them to fit will yield in a wavy outer edge. I found them to measure 15-1/4" wide by 15-7/8" long. 

Sew a strip pair between the inner sides of each two pairs of blocks, keeping the outer 4-1/2" strip to the outside. To get the alternating placement of colors like I did, you'll want to alternate the colors between the two pairs of blocks. One will have the first color on the right, and the other pair will have it on the left. See diagram below.

Watch your quarter inch seam allowance to make sure you don't get a strip of the printed color from the seam allowance showing. You may find it best to keep the panel on top so you can see the line where the seam allowance meets the narrow magenta border. Press towards the strips.

Stitch 2 pairs of strips between 3 conerstone squares, paying attention to the color arrangement as shown below, to make the 3 sashing rows, alternating in color placement as shown.

Sew these horizontal sashing units between the pairs of blocks, making sure to align seam between the the outer corner stones and the strips with the printed line of the outer magenta border of the owl block and the outer fabric. Press towards the strips as you go. Double check your color placement before sewing!

I plan on adding a 6 inch border to this but ran out of the print I wanted to use. I am totally blown away by the response we got to this project and have ordered more of the coordinating fabrics for delivery next week. (Edited to add: The companion fabric is back in stock) Cut 6 inch strips by the length needed to attach them by the method of your choice. I will be using a mitered border for this and will do a post when I add it.

I hope you found this tutorial helpful. I am still honing my graphic design and pattern writing skills, so forgive me if it's not as clear as it could be. I'm a work in progress!

Looking forward to next Wednesday and our quilt along video on the Amy's Quilting Adventures page on Facebook.

We have plenty of this line left if you want to sew and quilt along. Explore and place orders at AmyQuilts.com

Quilting with Rulers: Ombre Triangles Continue

My quilting is slowly getting done on my Ombre Triangles quilt. Slower than my favorite purple pen evaporates. Good thing I took pictures of the overall design.

The marks are mostly to point out which shapes I had planned to put where, not really something to stitch over. I did mark a line to indicate the apex and base line of the smaller inner triangles. I try to do as little marking as possible, using the markings on the rulers and the seam lines to guide me. But sometimes, there's not much to go by, so I definitely do mark.

I'm continuing to break it down into different geometric shapes. Last week I did a hexagon and this week it's time for a large triangle. This triangle is actually one of two overlapping triangles, so there's a part of it I'm not quilting.

I'm really loving using my straight 12 inch ruler for these half inch echoes I'm using to delineate the geometric shapes and then going back and filling in with this little flower fill.

I now mostly quilt in our store, Sew Simple of Lynchburg, and I've realized that I need to do some tweaking of my set up to allow me to quilt better. Most of the machines are set up for shop demos. I keep one set up for free motion quilting most of the time, but hadn't really set it up for my own use. (I'm really hoping we can move the shop in the coming year so I don't have to share studio work space with the sales floor.) I had some issues moving my ruler with my project.

The first issue was quickly identified. Once upon a time Janome had some Supreme Sliders cut to to be used with the extension table that comes with the Janome 8900. I had an extra one in the shop and was using it on the 8200QPCSE set into a Horn cabinet. It's long, but narrow. The slider really needs to be big enough to cover the joins between the insert and the cabinet surface.

It caused my ruler to get stuck or jerk when going over these areas.

Silly me....I preach to y'all about the need to have a good smooth surface to quilt on.

The next issue was found shortly after. It seems the machine had slid to the right a little.....

The arrow above points to where the insert was no longer supported by its own support built into the machine. The lower insert was causing my ruler to rock as I quilted with the ruler to the right of the needle.

Here's my story and I'm sticking to it..... I think that as we gain skill in free motion quilting (and likely other things in life), we can become a little blind to the basics that we paid so much attention to when we first started out.

I know I've got some awfully talented quilters here...have you let things slide in your quilting set up? Or not slide as in this particular case? Especially if you've traveled to a class, retreat, or workshop.

If you are new to free motion quilting, I cannot stress enough how much a good set up with a large smooth, flush to the machine bed, surface is to your quilting.

Going forward I will be putting one of my Sew Slip mats around the foot of this machine and make sure that it's in the proper position. (I will also be praying that the right space opens up for our shop. We need classroom space! But that's not exactly a actionable tip for you!)

Happy quilting!

Saturday Satisfaction

Happy Saturday folks! I'm sitting in the shade of my porch, accompanied by a skink, wren, and a horde of invading stink bugs. Enjoying the benefits of wifi, I'm basking in a feeling of accomplishment. As I've said when referencing how I got interested in quilting back when my kids were toddlers, I needed a feeling of accomplishment. Life was a series of things that didn't stay done; dishes, laundry, diapers. But stitching stayed done. Seems shipping out packages gives a great feeling too.

Today I sent two big totes of packages to the post office. My hubby pitched in and we enjoyed working together. Working together isn't new for us and we really enjoy it. My oldest son helped a bit too; trimming mailing labels, cutting tape. It is so satisfying to see the response the shop has gotten so far and knowing that I'm helping so many with their quilting and creativity.

This morning Patsy Thompson wrote a big review of my Craftsy class, Machine Quilting with Rulers on a Home Machine (That's still a 25% off discount link), and was so complimentary I was blushing! She's pretty incredible too...and is a big reason that Craftsy contacted me.

Speaking of Craftsy, they're having some more sales this weekend with online classes up to 65% off in the following sub-categories:


•  Sewing: Bags
•  Knitting: Colorwork
•  Quilting: Big Quilts
•  Painting: Figures & Portraits
•  Drawing: Figures & Portraits
•  Cake Decorating: Sugar Flowers
•  Paper: Mixed Media


You can learn something new and achieve amazing results in a Craftsy class. Right now during Craftsy’s sale, you can use my affiliate link to save and support a craft you love. [Click here to use my affiliate link]

I don't think hubby really understood how much interest there was in ruler work, finding great supplies for it, and how wonderful my follows were until yesterday. He's very supportive, don't get me wrong, but he's a numbers guy and it just clicked for him. After a talk about social media, he asked the question, "What is the biggest thing that keeps people coming to your site?" I told him it was ultimately the quilting. I can't share it, teach it, or post, pin, 'gram it, if I'm not actually doing it! A wonderful conversation followed about delegation and shared responsibilities. Looks like I will get a little more time to quilt!

Poor neglected quilt!

That's exactly what I am going to do right now folks! I'm heading inside to stitch on my neglected ruler work sampler.

Quilts of Spring Mill Village

I am at our annual family reunion this week and I thought I'd share some quilts from the pioneer village in the park. (I am writing this post on my phone during a well-earned break in my room while hubby and the kids are off doing something.

All the tables in the lodge restaurant have skinny little table runners on them! I'm not sure if they were made locally or are something that is mass produced. Our reunion moves around a little from year to year, but Spring Mill near Marshall Indiana is one of our favorites.

But the star of Spring Mill State Park is this pioneer village. Part of the buildings are original to the site and others were moved to the area to preserve them. The time period of the village is from the early 1800's to about 1860.

The water powered grist mill still works and is run every hour on the hour during the park's open hours. (My husband and youngest son are the folks in the picture.) The white that you can see above the water wheel is the water- it was running when I took this.

Several of the cabins have beautiful hand made quilts. I say cabin loosely here as the home pictured above was bigger than my cottage. Above is what I am sure is a newer quilt on an antique all-wooden frame.

Look at this appliqued baby quilt in such a beautiful cradle.

This may have been a rustic log cabin, but it is big and furnished with some gorgeous pieces!

Look at this pineapple quilt! This was in  the "nursery" across from the mill office and residence. It had wall paper over lath and plaster walls.

This is a trundle bed in the same building. On the right is a woven coverlet. Several of the cabins have looms and spinning wheels.

After we walked around the village, it was time to cool off in the creek. It wasn't too hot, but it was very humid! Coming from Virginia, that says a lot. But the creek water was numbingly cold. It didn't slow the kids down a bit. I dabbled my toes in it.

I hope you enjoyed this post; a little different from my usual posts, but I wanted to share these quilts and this park with you until I can get back home to the 'regularly scheduled program'!