I am blaming the cat….

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

In the short time that the cat has been in our house she has become the scapegoat for a number of offenses…. she has eaten the last of the ice cream, left the light on, very rudely abandoned washing in the dryer and today she is the reason that Paper Piecing Monday is running late….

Despite the cats best efforts, I have finally managed to get a block done…

This lovely star uses the June colour palette for No Hats in the House charity #opgivewarmth. I love the challenge each month of using a different set of colours that I would not usually work worth. I bravely selected a few of the colours in this months palette that were not pink and found Kona Solids to match…

The paper piecing pattern is another one from the Lucky Star BOM patterns from Elizabeth at Don’t Call Me Betsy. This block is the December 2013 Star and I love the square feel to it.

Now the cat and I are going back to watching the World Cup. She is finally over the disappointment of Australia going out and is rallying around the US team.

27Jun2014

Look what I have finally got done…

Posted in Finished Quilts, Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

… yes I finally got my red and aqua stars into a presentable form… a finished quilt top….I can hear the gasps of surprise from here…

These stars were the product of my first Paper Piecing Monday adventures. I loved putting them together each week, challenging myself to make some complex and amazing stars.

Some of the stars were free patterns from Quilting on the Square (you can find the links to the specific patterns under my Free Paper Piecing Patterns tabs) and others were from Carol Doak’s book 50 Fabulous Paper Pieced Stars.

So in the end I had 20 amazing 12 inch paper pieced stars and no real plan what to do with them. After an online survey last year, it was decided that navy sashing did the best job of showing off each and every star to its best, so a plan was hatched. Fast forward a few months (possibly more) and after auditioning a few navy fabrics and ended up using Robert Kaufman’s Quilters Linen in navy. It was perfect the job.

So now all that is left is to remove the paper… which will be quite a task as some of these suckers are really complex…

Then it is off to a long armer for quilting. At no point did I contemplate ruining this gorgeous quilt top with my quilting. It deserves the best…plus the finished quilt is going to my Mum so I want it to be amazing.

25Jun2014

A smattering of quilt blocks…

Posted in WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

I can not believe that June is nearly over…. this year is slipping away way to fast. It was with a small amount of panic that I realised this week that I was running out of time to finish up some of my Bee blocks, so armed with a pile of fabric, my iPad and a caffeine enriched beverage I set to work.

First up was the June blocks for my Do.good.Stitches bee…

The block is a great log cabin variation…Though one block does not look that exciting, put four of them together and you get a fabulous orb pattern…

While we are on the subject of Do.good.Stitches Bee blocks, here is May’s blocks which were a blast to make…

I have not done a cross block before and loved how easy it was to do. I got a little carried away with this block and made a few extra. I used Rachel from Wooden Spoons easy dimensions to make the block…plus lots of starch!

The final lot of Bee blocks I got done this week is a repeat of a block I did last year….

Yep the mini flying geese crazy is back. This month it was Stephanie from Quarter Incher’s turn to be Queen of our ScrapBeeLicous Bee, and she choose the Liesl Made’s Flying Geese Block. Yipee….

So I retooled my paper piecing pattern and set to work raiding my scrap stash. I actually think the only way to make this kind of quilt is to do it as part of a Bee (and to paper piece ti!). There is no way you want to be making more than a few of these blocks… okay there is no way I could make more than a few of these blocks and remain sane!

As it is Wednesday there is only one thing left to do….link up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.

23Jun2014

Paper piecing the Night Sky

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

This weeks Paper Piecing Monday is all about the Night Sky. This week I have and will be playing with the background blocks for my Starry Night quilt. My strategy is to use all those scrap pieces of patterns I have printed and lying around the office, with most of them so far being 6 inches square.

I started last week with a half log cabin…

and this week I added some paper pieced crazy blocks….

some left over star pattern pieces from Carol Doak’s book…

some strange flower log cabin pattern I found in amongst the paper pile…

and of course there has to be some flying geese….

I have decided to go with the majority of the sky being paper pieced, as it will make piecing the quilt top together much easier. I find that piecing paper pieced blocks and traditionally pieced blocks together can be fraught with size issues and usually if there is a large enough amount of traditional piecing I remove the paper from my blocks so that everything is “paper less”. If I am just sashing blocks then the paper stays on… it is the best way to ensure accuracy.

So the sky is underway… and despite the disparate style of blocks, they seem to work together well.

Okay I admit there is an insanity to this activity but it is kind of fun. There is no right or wrong… just lots and lots of navy blue, and a smattering of purple. Quilting heaven for me.

19Jun2014

A Wonky Tree Forest…and tutorial

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

A few weeks ago I forced everyone at the PMQG Charity Sew day to make wonky trees. We had a large amount of green, brown and cream fabrics donated to the Guild and as soon as I saw the fabric I knew that we MUST make trees.

There were only two rules…. the finished block had to be 8 1/2 inches square and it had have a tree in it. What follows is the basic instructions I gave at the start of the day…

Wonky Tree Block Instructions:

Step One…. grab all your green scraps…and some of your brown scraps and either some white/cream solid or a collection of cream scraps.

Step Two... sew a selection of your scraps together to make a rectangle of green goodness… this is going to be your tree top so make it as big or as small as you want you tree to be.

Step Three… trim said rectangle to your desired shape. For some of our trees we used a triangle ruler…

and for others we just made wonky oval shapes by trimming the corners of our rectangle and adding some corner background fabric….

Step Four…. add pieces of your background fabric around your tree top to make the it square and trim the bottom of your tree top so that it is straight…

Note: You do not have to worry too much about making sure that the “sky” (background fabric) around the tree is as big as your finished block size as you have the ability to add a border to the block as needed. With the smaller trees we made the tree block up and then sashed the block out to the 8 1/2 inch square finished size (see Step Six and a half).

Step Five… Build the tree trunk by cutting a small piece of brown scrap fabric to make a suitable sized tree trunk. Remember this is wonky quilting so it can be as fat or as thin or as tall or short as you want. Sew two pieces of your background fabric to your brown strip, making sure your finished trunk piece is at least as wide as your tree top piece. Make sure that you trim the top of the tree trunk so that it is straight.

Step Six… align the trunk to your tree top and sew the two pieces together.

Step Six and a half… if you have made a small tree sash your tree block to make it the correct size.

Step Seven…. Trim your block to size, we went with 8 1/2 inch square. Note: that the tree trunk ends at the bottom of the block, with no extra background fabric at the bottom. I found that having all the trunks at the bottom of the block made the overall look of the pieced quilt cleaner and more uniformed.

And voila you have a wonky tree block….

At the end of our day of sewing we had a veritable forest of different type of trees. Everyone embraced the wonky and the freedom to do whatever took their fancy. My favorite creation of the day was the Apple Tree…

It was so much fun putting the final quilt top together, there were so many fabulous blocks to choose from and I spent a good hour or so re-arranging the forest on my design wall.

When piecing the top together I used cream scraps cut into 8 1/2 square blocks and 4 1/2 x 8/12 inch strips to space out the trees. From playing with the layout on the design wall I knew I did not want to put all the trees together in one clump. I then added a 3 inch sashing of cream scraps between each row of trees.

I am so pleased with how this top turned out. There is a sense of fun and silliness to the trees…everyone did such a stellar job and no two trees are alike.