Taking stock of the month

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

January has been a crazy month for me and the website. The month has flown by and I feel I have achieved next to nothing on my “To Do” list… except I did get my mandatory two charity quilts done this week.

Both of my charity quilts for January are small baby quilts, but they count right? First up is a crazy improv quilt that I had started ages ago, got bored with and then just put aside. This week it became a loud baby quilt…

I do not know what I was thinking when I started this top, but when I found the perfect child friendly backing fabric I knew it had to be finished up and handed on. I also saw the quilt as a good opportunity to practice my free motion quilting. I went with some weird square quilt pattern which started as one technique and ended as another.

The quilting is far from good but the more I do the better I will get right? Please tell me it will get better!

The other quilt I finished up this week for Project Linus is a simple pastel patchwork that used a selection of my 3 inch squares.

I used both pastel scraps and tone on tone white scraps with simple piecing and simple quilting and enough novelty prints thrown in to keep a kids interest.

Both of these quilts were backed with whole cloth and machine bound. I must admit expediency rather creativity was the driving force behind both these quilts. They will go out into the world and do some good and hopefully their new owners will not look too closely at the technique but instead appreciate the thought behind them.

I wanted to finish up my last post of January with some blog news that some of you may or may not know. I have struggled all month with how to share this news without it seeming like I am blowing my own horn. I could not come up with a good solution so I am just going to do it….

In the first few weeks of January I had two wonderful shout outs for my quilts and quilting. First the amazing Sew Mama Sew included me in their wonderful “31 Inspiring Quilters” Series. I was a so thrilled to be selected and have had a wonderful time checking out the amazing talent that they have highlighted this month. If you are looking for inspiration check out this series.

Just a few days after my Sew Mama Sew post the latest edition of “Down Under Quilts” hit the newsstands in Australia. Somewhere in the middle of the magazine is this..

There in glossy print is three pages of my quilts and my words. It is kind of surreal. I have never been in print before, well not for my quilting anyway.

So if January is anything to go by, 2014 is going to be an infinitely better year than 2013, which to be honest is not hard..2013 kicked my butt badly.

29Jan2014

A colour dilema…

Posted in WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

A couple of days ago I realized that January was slowly slipping away and I had not managed to tick any projects off my 2014 To Do List. Drastic action was needed so I pulled out my Tula Pink blocks and got to work. I made the final couple of blocks, put them up on the design wall and stared at them for a day (very constructive use of time I hear you say).

I blame my husband for the delay, actually I blame him for a lot of things, but this was really his fault. You see last year when I started this project he did this…

It made me laugh at the time but when it came time to put the top together using just pink blocks something seemed to be missing. The layout with the Tardis was fun but it took away from the Tula Pink feel of the quilt. I then made this…

I thought a blue Tula Block would work but it just did not seem to have the same impact as a Tardis. In the end I have chosen to go with all pink blocks. I have added 1 1/2 inch sashing around the blocks and I am slowly sewing it together.

I have two more rows to go and before the top is all pieced…

As I add each row I keep thinking “should I add the blue”. I am constantly second guessing my decision.

I am loving the pink blocks together but there is something missing. AUGH… this is driving me crazy. What would you do?

27Jan2014

Another Neon Monday

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

This week I was just not able to make myself do another blue block… so to mix things up I thought I would make another Neon block. I recently inherited some Michael Miller Neon scraps and a couple of unused Neon blocks and thought I would try to make a neon quilt for the PMQG charity drive. So here is my first contribution to the quilt…

This is pattern is not too complex but I like how the star seems to have a frame. I did manage this week to get all my points to align and I really learnt from last weeks palava, which means the pattern is ready for use. You can find it here…WQ Neon Star block 1.

I am taking a brief break from my Starry Nights and I am looking forward to doing some non-star paper piecing blocks for this Neon quilt.

23Jan2014

My blue period continues…

Posted in Other fun stuff, Quilt patterns, Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

This week I got a little side tracked by a pile of scraps sitting around my sewing space. Most of the time I do a good job of keeping my creative urges under control – I usually jot the idea down in my note-book and go back to what I should be doing. This week the “should be doing” was quilting my sister in laws quilt... instead I took the scraps from that quilt and made some of these…

Yes the scraps from the project I SHOULD have been finishing tempted me into making log cabin blocks. In my defense I had a whole pile of 2 1/2 inch strips of fabric already cut and lots and lots of scrappy little ends of fabric. They cried out to be made into a log cabin, and I could not ignore it. The end result of this diversion is this lovely little top…

This 40 x 40 inch quilt top took me about 4 episodes of “Top of the Lake” to make and came together really easily. I already knew the colours worked together and all the cutting was done I just had to make log cabins.

I am really beginning to love what you can do with solids. I struggled with the first quilt with the lack of pattern, but now can not wait to make my next solids quilt. I have a cunning plan already.

This fun little exercise not only distracted me from my quilting to do list, but also added another UFO to my pile, but it was worth it. The only hard thing about this quilt so far has been photographing it in the howling wind this morning…

20Jan2014

The drama of Paper Piecing Monday

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

Oh it has been a fun morning of paper piecing this Monday (please note this statement is to be read with an Aussie accent and a hefty amount of sarcasm). This week I designed my first 12 inch star block. I was pleased with what I had come up with and that I was finally getting a hang of the design software. I printed out the pattern, sewed up the blocks till I had four square blocks…

I had colour coded my pattern because I wanted to play with the lights and darks of this block and was thrilled with how things were working out. Then I went to sew the squares together and discovered a tiny design fault – one of the seams does not line up exactly… insert appropriate swear words.

Frustrated I decided to sew the whole star together anyway just to check out the design… this is how it looks.

I was planning on attaching the pattern for this block, but I now have to go and amend it. I will make sure a correct and proper pattern is attached to this Star in my “Free Paper Piecing Patterns” section as soon as possible.

I am now debating whether to unpick it, start again or just call it good and move on.