Course Instructor: Heather Jones

 1 Yard C310 Cream Hooty Panel

1⁄2 yard C3011 Green Hooty Roll Call

1 1⁄2 yard C3014 Green Hooty Jacks

1⁄2 yard C3015 Blue Hooty Argyle

1⁄2 yard C3013 Blue Hooty Starburst

1⁄2 yard C3015 Brown Hooty Argyle

1⁄2 yard C3013 Brown Hooty Starburst

1 yard C3016 Blue Hooty Dots

1 yard C3017 Cream Hooty Stripes

Batting and thread of your choice 

Straight edge

Rotary cutter

Optional: 9 1⁄2 in quilters square

All seam allowances are 1⁄4 inch

From one yard of Blue Hooty Dots, cut 8 strips that are each 3.5 inches by the length of the fabric (ie. 42 inches). 

Then, from those strips, subcut into the following lengths:

9.5 inches x 3.5 inches. This is Piece B; cut 6.

33.5 inches x 3.5 inches. This is Piece C; cut 4.

40 inches x 3.5 inches. This is Piece D; cut 2.

Diagram of layout of quilt front

Cut fabrics for back:

Cut one 7 1⁄4 in square from the Cream Hooty Panel, Green Hooty Roll Call, Blue Hooty Argyle, Blue Hooty Starburst, Brown Hooty Argyle, Brown Hooty Starburst

Cut the Green Hooty Jacks into two pieces: 23 inches x 39 inches (section c) and 10 1⁄2 inches x 39 inches (section a).

Diagram of layout of quilt back

Constructing the wonky blocks:

1. From the Cream Hooty Panel, fussy cut a total of nine animals out of the fabric.

Be sure to leave at least an inch of fabric around each side of the animal, and square up each cut of fabric using a straight edge and rotary cutter.

These pieces will be the center of your wonky blocks. Feel free to choose whatever animals you like, but I used the three owls, the bird in the tree, the kangaroo, the koala bear, the frog, the crocodile, and the monkey.

Build wonky blocks

The wonky blocks are made up of 9 pieces of fabric, labeled 1-9 as shown below.

Piece 1: fussy cut animals from Cream Hooty Panel

Piece 2: Blue Hooty Starburst

Piece 3: Green Hooty Jacks

Piece 4: Green Hooty Roll Call

Piece 5: Blue Hooty Argyle

Piece 6: Cream Hooty Panel

Piece 7: Brown Hooty Argyle

Piece 8: Cream Hooty Panel

Piece 9: Brown Hooty Starburst

This type of block is somewhat improvisational, so there is no need to accurately measure the pieces or “logs” as there is in many traditional methods of quilting. Many of the pieces are just “eyeballed” to obtain the correct length or width needed to construct the blocks.

1. Choose a piece of Blue Hooty Starburst (piece 2) at least as wide as your fussy cut animal from the cream Hooty Panel (piece 1), and a few inches longer.

Pin it to the top of the fussy cut fabric, right sides together.

Stitch the two pieces together. I backstitch at the beginning and end of the seam, but you really don’t have to do this, since this seam will be cut later.

With a hot iron and steam, press the seam towards the Blue Hooty Starburst (piece 2).

2. Lay out a piece of Green Hooty Jacks (piece 3), just a bit longer in total length than your pieced fabrics (piece 1 + piece 2).

Line up the edges of the fabrics and pin, with right sides together, and stitch.

Press the seam toward the Green Hooty Jacks (piece 3) and trim with rotary cutter and straight edge if it is much longer than the end of the fussy cut piece of Cream Hooty Panel (Piece 1).

Tip: With all of the wonky seams that occur as your block grows, I find it easier to construct the blocks by placing the piece with the seams on top, and the uncut/seamless piece of fabric that I’m attaching on the bottom, so the fabric doesn’t get caught on the sewing plate or feed dogs while I’m sewing.

3. Lay out a piece of Green Hooty Roll Call (Piece 4) that is a bit longer than the total length of the stitched pieces 1 and 3. Since this is a directional fabric, be sure to keep the owls upright. You can also fussy cut this fabric as well if you want to make sure that the entire body of the owls will show in the finished block.

 Once you have your piece ready, align the edge of Piece 4, right sides together, and stitch. Press seam towards Piece 4 and trim any excess fabric from it that is longer than Piece 1.

4. Lay out a piece of Blue Hooty Argyle (Piece 5) that is a bit longer than the total length of the stitched pieces 1, 2, and 4.

Once you have your piece ready, align the edge of Piece 5 with the sewn pieces, right sides together, and stitch. Press seam towards Piece 5.

5. Now the fun part! Using your straight edge and rotary cutter, make a cut along the outside edge of pieces 2, 3, 4, and 5.

You can angle the cuts as much as you like. The more angled the cuts are, the wonkier your blocks will be. Just make sure that you don’t remove too much of the fabric because you’re only making one more layer of “logs,” and the finished square needs to measure 9 1⁄2 inches.

Once you’ve made the angled cuts to the block, you’re ready to construct the next layer of logs.

6. Lay out a piece of Cream Hooty Panel (Piece 6) that is a bit longer than the total length of the stitched pieces 5, 2, and 3.

Once you have your piece ready, align the edge of Piece 6 with the sewn pieces, right sides together, and stitch. Press seam towards Piece 6.

 7. Lay out a piece of Brown Hooty Argyle (Piece 7) that is a bit longer than the total length of the stitched pieces 6 and 3.

Once you have your piece ready, align the edge of Piece 7 with the sewn pieces, right sides together, and stitch. Press seam towards Piece 7 and trim any excess fabric from it that is longer than Piece 4.

8. Lay out a piece of Cream Hooty Panel (Piece 8) that is a bit longer than the total length of the stitched pieces 4, 5, and 7.

Once you have your piece ready, align the edge of Piece 8 with the sewn pieces, right sides together, and stitch. Press seam towards Piece 8 and trim any excess fabric from it that is longer than Piece 5.

 9. Lay out a piece of Brown Hooty Starburst (Piece 9) that is a bit longer than the total length of the stitched pieces 6, 5, and 8.

Once you have your piece ready, align the edge of Piece 9 with the sewn pieces, right sides together, and stitch. Press seam towards Piece 9.

10. Next we’ll make our last wonky cuts, but we’ll use the 9 1⁄2 inch plastic quilt square template instead of the straight edge. Place the square over the block, and adjust it over the block to see what your finished block may look like.

Make sure that Block A is close to the center. When you are happy with the arrangement, use your rotary cutter to square up the block and remove the excess fabrics.

 Your wonky block is done!

Here are a couple photos of the back of the block to show you what the seams look like.

                                                 Repeat steps 1-10 until you have 9 wonky blocks.

Variation--step 4 to construct Piece 5 of wonky block

Fussy cut a piece of Green Hooty Roll Call, and cut two strips the same width from the Hooty Hoot Blue Argyle.

Place a strip of Hooty Blue Argyle on top, right sides together, and stitch. Place another piece of Hooty Blue Argyle along the lower edge of the Green Hooty Roll Call and stitch so that the owl is in the center. Use this as Piece 5 in your block, and construct the block in the same manner as described above.

11. Once all nine blocks have been constructed, arrange them on a table, floor, or quilt design wall until you have them in the order you’d like them to be.

12. Keeping your blocks in the order that you arranged, refer to the diagram of the layout of the quilt front. Take one block, and sew a strip of the Hooty Blue Dots (Piece B) to create the first part of the sashing. Place Piece B on your wonky block (Piece A) right sides together, and sew.

Press seams open with a hot iron. Continue building the strip by alternating wonky blocks (Piece A) with Piece B.

Each of these three strips will consist of a wonky block (Piece A), Piece B, wonky block (Piece B), wonky block.

Diagram of layout of quilt front

13. After the three strips have been sewn, take one of the Blue Hooty Dot strips (Piece C), place it along the bottom edge of the strip and line up the edges, right sides together.

Sew together. Open up seams and press with a hot iron.

Take another strip of Piece C, line up edges right sides together, and sew it along the top of the strip. Open up the seams and press with a hot iron.

Repeat with the other two strips (Piece C).

14. Finish the top by sewing each Piece D to the right side and left side of the quilt. Press seams open.

Construct Back of Quilt:

Diagram of Layout of Back of Quilt

 15. Sew the 6 square pieces together left to right to form strip b. Press seams open.

16. Sew Strip b to the smaller piece of Green Hooty Jacks (piece a) . This is the top of the back of the quilt. Sew the larger piece (piece c) to the bottom of the strip. Press seams open. The back is now finished.

Baste, Quilt and Bind

17. Using your choice of batting, make a quilt sandwich. Lay the quilt bottom wrong side up. I secure the edges with blue painter’s tape.

Lay your choice of batting over the quilt bottom and smooth out all wrinkles.

Lay the quilt top over the batting, right side up.

Pin and baste as desired.

18. Quilt as desired. I quilted my version using straight lines running from top to bottom and spaced approximately 1⁄4 inch apart.

19. Use your preferred technique of binding. I cut the Cream Hooty Stripes on the bias because I like the look of the diagonal stripes, but it’s not necessary to cut the binding on the bias for this project.

After the binding is finished, wash and dry the quilt to get all the yummy wrinkles and crinkles. Your Hooty Hoot Wonky Quilt is finished!