Quilt Notes: Comparing the sculpture left with the design on the right, how are they both owls? And yet if you look for it, you see it in the quilt design almost immediately, the ears, the beak in the center, the wings, the clawed feet. Owls own their perch magnificently too, like a four-sided polygon — a rectangle or square — stable, solid and true. It would seem almost certain that the original quilt maker for this pattern came up with the geometry first, and looking at it for a while, searching for a name, the owl simply made itself known in some iconic fashion. FEATHER STAR does the same thing, except that it does not suggest a specific species for the bird. The figure of an owl is unusually distinctive. But see also OLD CROW, and with a note by Marie D. Webster on quilt naming.

For geometrically related designs at this site, see the enchanting TOWERS OF CAMELOT, as well as other eight-point stars, including FRENCH STAR (with Berthe Morisot), DOVES IN THE WINDOW and POLARIS STAR.

THE OWL QUILT first appeared in print in the Kansas City Star, May 1, 1937. Various quilt design compendiums suggest differing piecing grids. The block can easily be worked out as a gorgeous nine patch. The small square in the center, without crossbars, is unusual. See the QUILTER'S ALBUM OF PATCHWORK PATTERNS, by Jinny Beyer, pg. 155-5 and Barbara Brackman's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PIECED QUILT PATTERNS, p. 517, #4201. Maggie Malone's 5,500 QUILT BLOCK DESIGNS has it too (pieced as a nine-patch), p.39, #426.