Owl-rageous Wall Hanging

I'm back again today to talk about the second of four GO! Owl projects I recently designed and created for AccuQuilt...let's take a look at the GO! Owl-rageous Wall Hanging...

This cheerful wall hanging made from adorable Riley Blake Designs fabrics from the Summer Song 2 Collection by Zoe Pearn makes me smile just to look at it! It uses the GO! Owl and the GO! Round Flower cutting dies for the appliqué shapes. Each owl has a different look...and each owl is framed by fabric strips. This wall hanging quilt is also a perfect throw/lap size at 48" x 48"...and you can easily "make it your own" by changing fabrics and owl positions - adjust the wings and eyes, add leaves to the branches, maybe add a flower or two! You could use more traditional outdoorsy colors or I could see this in beautiful batik fabrics, as well.

When working with and centering the appliqué shapes on your base block, my tip is to use a pressing board with blocking and square-up lines – often times, these portable pressing boards are used for heirloom sewing. If you are not familiar with this type of pressing board, it is a portable size padded board for pressing/ironing with measurement/grid markings – I know both June Tailor and Martha Pullen have several on the market (they can be found at your favorite crafting/quilting stores or click on their individual names for more information). Since the base block for the appliqué in these owl projects is white fabric, it is easy to see the gridded lines through the fabric – you can use the gridlines on the pressing board to line up the block and center pieces without difficulty. I should also note, I used (my personal favorite) Pellon SF101 (Shape-Flex) interfacing to stabilize each of my blocks before the machine appliqué  – it is soft and smooth, it is 100% cotton, it adds just enough stabilization to the base block for clean appliqué, and (best of all) it is not bulky…and since it is fusible, it does not have to be torn away.

For the machine appliqué I used a blanket stitch, but a satin stitch or zig-zag stitch would work perfectly, as well...and I like to applique with a thread color that matches the fabric.

This project is very manageable for all skill levels...and if it looks a bit overwhelming, try working on one block a day (or week) and you will have all 16 blocks completed in no time!

....and, once again, the good news...for a very limited time, this pattern is available to download for FREE on the AccuQuilt website...simply visit: http://www.accuquilt.com/shop/go-owl-rageous-wall-hanging-pattern.html

Just a note about the fabric colors for those who want their wall hanging to look like the model - if you click on the link for the Summer Song 2 Collection by Zoe Pearn for Riley Blake Designs you will see actual color swatches. For some reason these bottom two photos (credit to AccuQuilt) look more red, when it is a bright pink (closer to my top two images)...

You can read more about my four owl designs on the AccuQuilt Blog, where I recently did a guest post...and be sure to return tomorrow when I will share another one of my GO! Owl creations...