Pastel Paper Piecing Monday Block 2

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

Oh I am loving the new colour selection for Paper Piecing Monday. It is a little out of my comfort zone but I surprisingly have a lot of pastel fabric in my stash… who knew!

Like last week I used a fabulous pattern from Don’t Call Me Betsy’s “Lucky Star BOM“. Part of my wants to make this block again, but with another colour for the center pin wheel. Oh if only I had the time!

This really was a simple pattern with just 32 pieces, and there is definitely room to play with colour and make the pattern look really different.

Now back to red and yellow flying geese. I am nearly finished, but it has taken way longer than I thought it would to get them done.

6Sep2013

Yummy Quilt finished

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

The weather in Portland has finally turned, and the rain and cold of the last two days has spurred me onto finish my Yummy Charity Quilt. I do struggle in summer to finish quilts, partly because the sun beckons me out to play and partly because it is too hot to be working under/over/on a quilt. Here is what my rain inspired burst of activity produced…

This quilt started life as 20 packets of 2 1/2 inch squares of “Happy Mochi YumYum” and some Kona “Snow”. You can read/see more about its humble beginnings in my original post.

I had fun randomly placing the squares and messing up the one white one print pattern. I like how the finished quilt feels a little off kilter.

To back the quilt I used the few remaining blocks and spare squares of fabric. The back is random but kind of fun.

I kept the quilting simple – I am still only able to manage straight lines at the moment, and bound the quilt in a fun green leaf print I had in my stash. A dislocated thumb makes basting, quilting and binding in particular hard work.

quilt binding

The finished quilt is part of the Hopes and Dreams Quilt Challenge for ALS, which the Portland Modern Quilt Guild is supporting. If you are interested you can find out more about the Challenge here.

Now it is back to enjoying the rain…

4Sep2013

Inspiration can come from the strangest places

Posted in Scrap quilts, WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

I am constantly amazed by what inspires me – where ideas and colour combinations for a quilt come from. This week’s work in progress is a good case in point.

This bright scrap quilt was inspired by my local petrol/gas station logo.

Strange I know, but I was filling the car up one day and realized I really love these two colours together. I promptly came home and pulled some scraps and made up this block.

I originally posted about this flying geese pattern back in April this year. You can find the original post, with a free paper piecing pattern here. A couple of months later and I got the urge to finish this quilt top, so I pulled fabric from my stash as well as from my scrap pile and started work.

Now I have a stack of blocks and I am gradually putting the top together.

My placement is random and fun and I have thrown in a couple of reverse blocks to break things up. It is kind of fun making the arrows go all over the place.

I have also been thinking of making some yellow arrows with yellow background, but I am not sure about it. Any thoughts?

2Sep2013

Pastel pretty – Paper piecing Monday

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

This week marks the start of my next paper piecing adventure. It took me a little while to choose my colour palette for this quilt and in the end I wanted to do something softer. So without further ado here is the first block of the series…

The block is the September block from Don’t Call Me Betsy’s “Lucky Star BOM” program. I subscribed to this series at the beginning of the year and have made a few of the blocks over the year, including for my Paper piecing Boston Blocks. They are great patterns and the fun thing is if you sign up for the BOM program now you get January to September immediately. None of the waiting month by month that I had to do – have I mentioned I am not overly patient!

This pattern is an easy 44 pieces and I love the pin wheel in the center. I hope you like the new palette and will join me next week for the block number 2.

28Aug2013

Playing with dolls – wip Wednesday

Posted in WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

Recently the Portland Modern Quilt Guild set it’s members a challenge to make Doll Quilts to help raise money for the Oregon Ballet Theater. I had never made a doll quilt before and it seems like a great way to practice my free motion quilting while helping out a good cause.

So I started with some 3 inch squares and came up with these…

What is so strange about both this little quilts is that they have made 3 inch blocks seem too big. I am going to have to go smaller – which scares me a little, but should be interesting.

I have also started playing with some 1001 Peeps scraps I had and have this little wip on my design wall.