Briar Rose wip Wednesday

Posted in WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

This week I finally got up the courage to cut into my bundle of beautiful Briar Rose fabric. I wanted this fabric soooo much that I saved up my money and pre-ordered a 1/2 yard bundle from Pink Castle Fabrics… something I had never done before.

The bundle has then sat, untouched, on my quilting desk. I would occasionally pat it or rearrange the fabrics but I could not find the perfect block to inspire me to pick up my rotary cutter.

Fast forward to last weekend when I got a fabulous email from Katie at SwimBikeQuilt. I had won a prize during her 100 Quilts for Kids campaign… and the prize was three pattern from the fabulous Red Pepper Quilts. Needless to say there was much excitement and shouting and dancing around the house. I had been eyeing up Rita’s Labyrinth pattern for a while and was so excited to receive a copy of it in my pattern bundle. I now had the perfect Briar Rose pattern.

The pattern is so easy to follow and so fun to make. I have been having a blast cutting up my stash, laying out the block bits and choosing what fabrics goes where.

It is a refreshing break for me to be using just one line of fabric… no wading through scrap bins…. no huge piles of fabric in one particular colour.

Instead there is just a bundle of pretty on the cutting table and a yard or two of Kona Snow. Not a piece of paper in sight. (my printer is taking a bit of a rest).

Though I must admit that my blocks are not as perfect as they would be if I was using a paper pattern, I love them none the less. I am embracing the fun of making these blocks, enjoying the beauty of the fabric line and relishing the thrill of doing something a little outside my comfort zone.

7Oct2013

Foxy Paper Piecing Monday

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

Okay I could not help myself…I just had to do it…

I decided that my low volume quilt needed a block from No Hat’s In the House fabulous Forest quilt, as a not too subtle nod to the amazing quilt that inspired my low volume sampler. So I bit the bullet and headed over to the Forest QAL and picked one of their FREE paper piecing blocks.

These patterns are crazy good but complex. How complex I hear you ask… well my fox took four colours…

cut into 99 scraps of fabric…

sewn onto 27 separate pattern pieces…

that were then sewing into three sections…

These sections were then sewn together to make one incredible block.

I was so thrilled with how this block turned out and I kept shoving it in my husbands face saying “look how fabulous this is”… “isn’t this block incredible”… “have you ever seen anything so amazing”. He was not as excited as I had hoped about the whole thing. Actually his response was decidedly underwhelming. Going to have to get him to work on that.

He just keeps saying “what does the fox say“….

4Oct2013

A solid finish

Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

I committed this week to try to finish a quilt a week for October… and I mean baste, quilt and bind. I want to try to get as many quilts finished and delivered to Project Linus before the holidays. A crazy goal I know, but I have to give it a go.

To start this slightly mad schedule I decided to make another trip around quilt. I love these quilts, they are so easy and fun to make. This one is a little different for me can you tell how?

Those of you who know my work will note a distinct lack of pattern on the fabric. Yep I made a completely solid quilt. I have only made one of these before and it was a disaster, luckily this one came out much much better.

My Trip Along started life as a jelly roll, that has been sitting in my stash for quite a while….

I love the colours of the roll, but did not know what to do with it until I had to make some Bee trip around blocks recently. Those blocks inspired me to make another Trip Around quilt and so the fun started. I managed to get 16 x 12 inch blocks out the one jelly roll (with a little finagling to get the last block complete).

With the first Trip Around quilt I did I went scrappy, bright and used the traditional block layout but with this quilt I went with a wave layout.

My hand is still not allowing me to do any quilting other than straight lines, but luckily I think it works perfectly with this quilt top. I quilted diagonally across the top using a nice Sulky thread to add some shine to the stitches, my way of compensating for the lack of print on the fabric.

To finish it all off I had to find a piece of backing fabric that would compliment and offset the solid fabric front. I was thrilled to find in my stash this AMAZING Alexander Henry print.

Here is a close up detail on the fabulous jungle print. It really is the most perfect fabric for this quilt.

All that was left was to label and machine bind the quilt. Staying true to the front of the quilt I went with a Kona solid binding in dusty purple.

So one quilt down for this month a few more to go…

Fine print: I do reserve the right to subtly or not so subtly pull out of my “one quilt a week” schedule. I also reserve the right to call myself crazy for setting such a schedule.

2Oct2013

Adventure Time wip Wednesday

Posted in Scrap quilts, WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

After several “low volume” projects recently I wanted to do something different, loud, bright. I found inspiration in the pages of my husband’s Adventure Time comic for my new block. If you know Adventure Time at all you will see the strong influence of Princess Bubblegum in this block. She regularly pops up in Jake & Finn’s crazy adventures. Now if you do not know Adventure Time, this is Princess Bubblegum.

After pulling a stash of bubblegum pink fabric and aqua/blue fabric, I found a pattern I liked and started cutting. The end result is this…

With this block I did not let the pattern’s unpleasant name ( “turkey giblets”) turn me off. You can find the paper piecing pattern I used at Quilters Cache. It is a really easy pattern to make and is made up of two triangle blocks that are joined to make the building block of the quilt.

I can not wait to see how this quilt top comes together. I think it is going to be a quilt like my “Sun & Sea” quilt where the final overall quilt pattern looks so different from the individual block pattern.