A blue finish

This week I managed to get my sister in laws quilt finished, photographed and posted. It took me way longer than I hoped, but I am glad it is finally on its way to sunnier climes.

The quilt was too long to be photographed in my usual spot so I took it out to the local park and hung it on the fence around the baseball practice area. It was a little to wet and muddy to get more creative but I liked the location change-up.

The blocks for the quilt were made using the “Trip Around” technique and tons and tons of blue solids. If you are interested you can read more about the initial design process here.

For the quilting I was originally just going to do straight line stitching in on diagonally on the quilt in one direction. It made the quilt feel like the water was flowing in one direction, which I loved. I then had the brilliant idea to add ten lines of quilting diagonally opposite to the flow to represent the ten years that my sister-in-law has been married…the ten years where her path has intersected with someone else. Okay I was being really sentimental and mushy and I will stop now!

I backed the quilt with the perfect print from Lizzy House’s “Constellations” collection and hand bound it with a variety of dark solids. I am hoping that Christine loves this quilt as much as I do…

31Jan2014

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.

3Jan2014

A special little quilt

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

Last night I managed to finish one of two little quilts I have been wanting to make for a while now. These quilts are special not just because of their lack of colour, but because of the thinking behind them.

This simple little quilt is made up of a variety of 3 inch squares of white and cream tone on tone fabrics. I was inspired to make this quilt after seeing the fabulous Molli Sparkle’s “No Value quilt“. It was a challenge to work with just white but it was great fun. I ended up using off white and cream to get some variation in the quilt, so the eye had something to follow.

So why tiny little white quilts… Christmas last year some friends of our suffered the heartache of having their son be still born. It is a heart ache I can not imagine, but one that a few people I know have suffered. There was nothing I could do at the time but cry, support and pray. Recently I was talking to some members in our Project Linus group who told me about the little white blankets that a group had been knitting and crocheting for some local hospitals. These tiny blankets are used to wrap a child in when it is presented to its parents to say goodbye. The parents can then take the blanket home as a remembrance of their child.

I do not knit but I thought that a tiny quilt would be just as useful. So I set about making two little quilts in remembrance of my friends and their son. As with all my quilts there is a splash of Mirror Ball and a splash of Pearl Bracelet fabric… and a huge dash of love.

I backed this quilt with a scrap of white fabric I had and a splash Mirror Ball and bound the quilt with Michael Miller’s Couture Cotton in Cream.

I have one more of these quilts to bind and then they are off to do their job of bringing comfort and support. There are a number of wonderful charities that delivery blankets/quilts to hospitals for this need, including Forever Warm in the USA, Sands in Australia, Sands in the UK and of course your local Project Linus chapter or Neonatal hospital.

On a much happier note, our friends who suffered such heartbreak last year have just had a beautiful, healthy baby girl. Life really is a wonderful roller coaster of a ride.

20Dec2013

It took awhile…

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

but I finally got to meet in person the quilt that the Portland Modern Quilt Guild did as part of our Michael Miller Neon challenge. I had heard rumors about the quilt and seen a small photo of it on the Michael Miller site but that was it, until last week.

My interest in this quilt is purely selfish… you see my challenge block had ended up on the quilt. Earlier in the year I took the lovely pack of Neon fabric, chose a paper piecing pattern and made this beauty…

The various blocks were all collected up at our MQG meeting and it was not till many many months later I saw that they had been turned into this…

So modern. So bright. So fun.

Yep my star had joined a number of other beautiful blocks, including my friend Lisa’s gorgeous improv block to become this quilt.

I really love how all the random blocks are made to work with this unique layout. Amber Wilson, a PMQG member did an amazing job piecing the top and Nancy Stoval’s quilting is just perfect, as always.

This quilt has been traveling a bit. It was featured at the Michael Miller booth at Quilt Market in May and then was shown at the Sisters Outdoor show in summer.

I am so very proud of my little block and it’ place on this beautiful quilt.

ps. Please excuse the photos… I had to grab photos when I could but I had to share…I just had to.

13Dec2013

Block Rock’n Sampler quilt

Posted in Finished Quilts, Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

After a year of Paper Piecing Monday I have finally finished a quilt from my Monday blocks. I am very proud to present my Block Rock’n sampler quilt top.

All these blocks are from Julie at 627Handwork’s fabulous free Block Rock’n pattern collection. There are only two blocks from her collection missing from this quilt – my Icky Thump block became part of the beautiful Icicle quilt and Julie’s Floyd block which I have not made yet.

Block rockn quilt detail

For the record my favourite block is this beauty….

For the quilting of this lovely , I went with diagonal lines, which seemed appropriate with the off center block placement I went with.

For the backing I found some fabulously outrageous IKEA fabric in my stash which was just perfect. The photo does not do these neon lips justice.

The final touch was some solid Kona grey binding, which was attached using the sewing machine. I figured that this quilt might get a lot of love (and stains) and wanted it to be as durable as possible. Machine binding, though not as pretty as hand binding, in my opinion, does add some sturdiness.