Owl Quilt

So I'm trying something completely new to me. I'm designing my own quilt pattern. This quilt is being created for an order. So I haven't shown anything to the person yet. I'm going to just show her the quilt top when it's finished. If she doesn't like it, I'll just keep it for myself :) I didn't have much to go on besides using the colour purple and Owls.

The process in the last couple of weeks has just been drawing it out on graphing paper and attempting to figure out how much fabric I would need. Last night, I decided to start the process in making it. There isn't a lot of piecing since I'm using about a meter of fabric for the quilt center. And then just appliqué pieces. Here is what I have done so far :)

Here is just the layout. I cut out the branch pieces and I purchased an embroidery pattern with an owl online. I was thinking of attempting to embroider the owls on the center but I didn't want to mess it up because there really is no going back. 

 Here's a close-up of the embroidered Owl. I used only two thread colours because I just wanted to see how the pattern was going to stitch out. Especially since at that point, I was thinking of doing the embroidered owls on the quilt. Instead I made some templates to use for appliqué.

 I only made one wing template, I just have to remember to flip it over for the mirror image :)

Here are all the pieces laid out to show the appliqué Owl. I'm going to put one Owl on each branch.

So all in all, I am quite happy with the layout so far. Hopefully I'll have a chance to start fusing the pieces on and stitching them this week. I think I'm going to use stabilizer for the appliqué pieces when I stitch them. I never have before but I have heard that it holds the stitches better. I use stabilizer almost all of the time for my embroidery.

What's your take on it? Do you use stabilizer or no?