Owl Stencil Quilted Wall Hanging

Have you ever used a stencil for applique? It is a lot of fun! This cute owl wall hanging would look great anywhere and takes no time at all to make.

Owl Stencil Quilted Wall Hanging

18″ x 21″

A couple months ago Stencil Revolution sent me a couple of their neat stencils and I finally finished up this beautiful stenciled owl wall hanging that I appliqued using their 12″ x 18″ Owl Stencil.

You might remember that the first stencil I used from Stencil Revolution was the Aztec Lizard and I made a wall hanging using my my Derwent Watercolor pencils.

Here is the post in case you missed it. Aztec Lizards Stenciled Wall Hanging

Let me show you how I made this wall hanging

Supplies:

• 12″ x 18″ Owl Stencil
• ½ yard Neutral batik for background
• scraps of assorted brown batiks for owl
• ½ yard Brown batik for border and binding
• Aurifil thread
• Heat n Bond Lite or fusible interfacing of your choice
• Batting
• 3/4 yard Backing fabric

I have a great stash of Island Batik fabrics since I’ve been an Island Batik ambassador for them for several years. Most of the pieces aren’t very big but they are perfect for applique. I pulled out a group of brown batiks for this quilt project.

Creating the applique pieces:

• Lay the stencil on the wrong side of the Heat n Bond Lite (this is the smooth side)
• Use a pencil and trace each shape, Stencil Revolution uses 12 mil Mylar and the thickness makes it very easy to mark inside each shape.
• Decide what fabric colors you want on each section. 
• I used four different fabrics and drew a line around each area that was a particular fabric on the Heat n Bond Lite.
• Cut around the sections and then iron on to your batiks following the directions on the fusible interfacing.
• Cut the pieces out.

The photo below gives you a better idea of the browns I used for the different parts of the owl.

Placing the applique pieces:

Originally I thought I could lay the stencil on the fabric background, place the applique pieces in each little section and then remove the stencil. This didn’t work at all as the pieces moved.

Making a selection around each part that would be a different fabric made it easy for me to cut the sections into separate pieces before placing the Heat n Bond Lite on each batik.

I cut the background fabric several inches bigger than I actually needed it to be and the what worked was placing the stencil on my background fabric and using a Frixon pen to trace each shape. It actually took no time at all to do this.

I cut out one section (color) at a time and placed the pieces on the background fabric. Place a fusing mat over the top of the applique pieces before you press them down. I have a new one that I’ll be doing a review on shortly.

Borders:

• Trim the background piece with the owl
• The way I like to do this is just use my ruler to trim it about 1½” from the appliqued owl, you can leave it larger if you like
• My quilt piece is 14″ x 17½”
• Measure the sides and cut two 2 pieces 2½” by the length of the sides – 2½” x 17½”
• Sew them to the sides with a ¼” seam allowance
• Measure the top and bottom and cut two pieces 2½” by the length of them – 2½” x 17½”
• Sew them to the top and bottom with a ¼” seam allowance

Applique and Quilting:

• Layer your owl, batting and backing
• There are quite a few small pieces and as I have mentioned many times, I like to do things fast.
• Instead of appliqueing around each and every piece, I caught the edges of the pieces while I was doing my free motion quilting.

I used my vintage 15-91 Singer sewing machine for all of my piecing and quilting using Aurifil thread and chose a cream color

I also used a Schmetz Microtex 80/20 sewing machine needle. This needle works very well with batiks.

This will be used as a wall hanging so I cut two 5″ squares of the backing fabric to make corners on the back of the pieces. Fold each one diagonally and press. Pin the the top corners and then stitch them down about 1/8″ from the edge just to hold it in place.

To finish up add binding the using my machine quilt binding tutorial.

• The binding was cut 2½” wide
• Wonder Clips are great for holding your binding in place

When you sew the binding you will catch the corners in it.

Take a closer look at the back of the stenciled owl wall hanging. You can see that sometimes my quilting lines cross over. This usually happens when I am trying to catch the applique pieces.

I really like the way this little wall hanging turned out!

I would like to thank Stencil Revolution for sending me both the Owl and Aztec Lizard stencil to use for projects. They have all kinds of beautiful stencils and each one can be purchased in various sizes.

I couldn’t resist taking a photo of the stenciled wall hanging and Mickey!

For more info check out these posts:

Aztec Lizard Wall Hanging

Meet Mr. Mickey