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.

30Sep2013

Paper Piecing Monday Scapbeelicious style

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

This week’s paper piecing Monday is a little different. I recently joined my first quilting Bees – one of them is a do.Good.Stitches circle and the other is a fabulous collection of fellow bloggers who set up “Scrap-bee-licious”. For both Bee’s I was “queen” this month, which means I am choosing the pattern/colour scheme for my fellow quilters.

The Scrap-bee-licious Bee caused me the most consternation as this quilt is not going to charity, but will be staying with me. I have only kept one quilt so far in my quilting history, so I had to think long and hard about what I really wanted. So after much umming and ahhing, hair pulling and mind changing I settled on…

… low volume. A couple of weeks ago Sarah at No Hats in the House posted photos of one of the most amazing quilts I have ever seen. Her “Once Upon a Forest” quilt took my breath away. Inspired the beauty of this quilt, I have asked my fellow Bee members to make me a scrappy low volume paper pieced block or two.

I have not selected a specific pattern to be followed but have asked them to make me any 12 inch paper pieced block they want. There are so many fabulous free paper piecing patterns on-line, including this one (called Circle of Geese) from Pieced by Numbers or Julie at 627handwork’s Block Rockn’ blocks or Quilting on the Squares Compass Collection.

As I discovered with this block there is a method to getting contrast and detail when you are working with low volume. When I pulled fabric for this block I pulled two different type of low volume from my stash:

1. Pastel, soft solid fabrics.

2. Predominantly white fabrics

The importance of the contrast these two different low volume fabric selections give you was highlighted to me when I made the mistake of using two pieces of solid light grey in the background. In the resulting block…

–

..you can see how the grey pearl bracelet in particular distracts/hinders/muddies the circle of geese pattern. A little unpicking and some re-sewing later and the block was just what I wanted. I am now excited to try a paper pieced star or two using these colours and I can not wait to see what my fellow Bee members come up with. This is going to be fun.

27Sep2013

Lost Geese Quilt top finished

Posted in Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

This week I managed to get my “Shell logo” inspired flying geese quilt top finished. By the time I had finished laying out this quilt top it had earned the name “Lost Geese”, can you guess why?

Yep is it a little crazy… but kind of fun. Lots of novelty fabric and fun stuff to make the eyes really explore the madness.

I had a lot of fun making the “geese” go all over the place. I love the lack of pattern or rhythm to the piecing (though it frustrated my husband a little). Too really throw things into disarray I added a smattering of yellow triangles on a red background. Chaos rules!

I paper pieced these blocks as I love to have sharp clear triangles in my flying geese and paper piecing is the only way I personally can get that precision. My original post has a paper piecing pattern you can grab if you are interested in trying some geese.

This top has been added to the pile that need basting. I am going to see if I can convince my hubby to help me again this weekend to baste a quilt or two.

25Sep2013

Bee Block fun… wip Wednesday

Posted in WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

This week has been all about Bee Blocks… finishing up my September blocks and making decisions about the October blocks. First up is do.Good.Stitches Hope blocks…

After last month’s crazy mini flying geese block it was refreshing to do a nice easy fun block. The request was for two 12 inch log modern log cabin blocks… right up my alley.

The other Bee request was for some Trip Along blocks. We were given a bit of range when doing these blocks, so I stepped outside my colour comfort zone and ended up with a woodland inspired block…

And this one…

In between the Bee blocks I have been adding more blocks to my Zakka Flower quilt. This weeks new blocks include these two lovelies.

These flowers are decidedly addictive. I am currently at 18 flowers and have more cut ready to go. It does not help my addiction that Denyse Schmidt has designed so much great fabric!

The final project of the week has been getting some photographs taken of ME. Any of you who have explored my block in-depth or follow me will know that:

(1) I hate having my photo taken; and

(2) there is only one photo of me up on the site and it is ancient.

I finally had to give in and get some head shots done, so without further ado here is an out take from the shoot…

My darling BFF’s helped me out which meant the whole experience was not too traumatic… and there was lots and lots of laughter.

23Sep2013

Pinwheel Paper Piecing Monday

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

The pastel pin wheel fun continues this week with the latest Paper Piecing Block.

This quilt is going to scream ‘pin wheel’ by the time I have finished. I found some more fun patterns this weekend and I am excited to get some more blocks done so I can put up a wip photo for you.

This is one of the easier patterns taking only 32 pieces to complete. The blocks pattern was the “test” pattern for Don’t Call Me Betsy’s “Lucky Star Block” series I made this block before – it was part of my Paper Piecing Monday Boston Edition. One pattern, two very different blocks, which what I love about these patterns… lots of options.

I am now patiently awaiting the October block. I love getting a new pattern in my email every month, a fun little present for me to play with.