Blogger's Quilt Festival

Whew~
I made it!  With only 8 hours left in the quilt festival, I managed to finish my quilt and blog about it.  Now let's hope that some people start browsing the festival links from the bottom of the list...

Today I'm happy to show off my little owl miniquilt.  This project was underway for a long time.. I bought the owl panel at Yuzawaya in Tokyo in 2007, when C and I were desperate for kids but devastated by infertility.  I was sure one day I'd have a little family, and I'm very very happy that my dreams came true.

For some reason he thinks you have to close your eyes when you say "cheese!"

I started the miniquilt when I was getting ready to try for baby #2, thinking, "OMG, I have to use this awesome panel before we have 2 little owls!" and worried how I was going to applique the next kid's owl on there.  Haha.  well, let me just tell you, getting pregnant isn't as easy as they told you it would be in high school..
The quilt sat, basted, with a couple lines of quilting in it for over a year as other projects kept bumping it out of the way.  I picked it up in September and vowed to finish it and get it on the wall, so we could enjoy it, and be reminded to enjoy our little family as it is now.

It was made to coordinate with this quilt, which is on our bed most of the year, and I used a few left over blocks for the back.  I quilted in perle cotton #8 and as I worked I remembered how much I love hand quilting (of course, today as I rushed to finish the last few lengths of thread, I also remembered how sore your fingers get from hand quilting, and that you really can't rush it). 

Hand quilting gives you lots of time to think.. so I thought about owls, and how they were so trendy, then came out with avengance and got too trendy, and now it feels people are ready to move on to a new cute animal.  For me though, I still like them.

I found these on my desk at work in the summer of 2007.  A co-worker's grandma made them.

Have you seen the Owl Art Calendar?  I just came across it last week, totally cool, and free too!

I also thought about blogging and deadlines, and the pressure to make things just to show them online.  That pressure has been weighing a little hard on me lately.  Once again I'm starting to feel that I've gotten sucked in, that I want to make things because other people are making them, and not spending the time to make the quilts I want to make.  The quilt blog community is moving so fast, with a constant pressure to make, buy, show off, participate.. Some days I love it, it's a great and creative community.  But other days it makes me feel guilty and stressed out.  This miniquilt is mine.  My idea from my experiences.  My time, my family.  It's a good reminder that you don't have to have or do everything out there,  What really matters are the things that make life more full and balanced.  I hope seeing this quilt on my wall will keep me centered, positive, and grateful for what life has brought me.