Snowflakes paper piecing Monday style

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

This week I have taken a break from my Starry Nights to make a quilt block for Nicole at Modern Handcraft. As part of the ScrapBeelicious Bee, Nicole asked for Christmas inspired blocks which put me into an absolute blind panic.

You see the truth is I do not understand Christmas quilts. It may be because where I am from it tends to be about 90 degrees + on Christmas day and a quilt is the last thing on earth you want anywhere near you. It may be because I do not understand making a quilt that you use, at most, one month of the year. Do not get me wrong, I LOVE Christmas, I just do not get Christmas quilts.

So with that in mind I pondered what to do for this month’s blocks…. and this is what I came up with.

A scrappy snowflake star. Nicole did say her colours where white, grey and red. Okay it does not scream Christmas but it is very pretty. I mashed up two of Carol Doak’s patterns again from her “50 Fabulous Paper Pieced Star” book – this time Oklahoma and Ohio. My pieces count on this one is 100 – the Oklahoma block is a little fiddly.

My next block for Nicole will be a more festive… which means I will throw in some red and maybe some green for good measure.

2Dec2013

Starry night mash up…

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

After putting my blocks up on the design wall last week I really wanted to try to do a different kind of star and this is what I came up with…

I threw together two different patterns from Carol Doak’s book “50 Fabulous Paper Pieced Stars“. I seriously love how you can mix and match the star patterns and come up with your own concoction.

For this 64 piece star I used one piece of the Montana star and one piece of Ohio. It is a unusual combination but I kind of like the fractured look the star has. I think it will go nicely with the other stars made so far.

25Nov2013

Starry Nights grow – Paper Piecing Monday

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

This week I decided to play a little with my Starry Night blocks, that is put them up on the design wall and see how it was all coming together. But before I started “playing” I made this block….

Yes, another pattern from Quilting on the Square’s free Bonus Compass blocks… this time I went with their twinkle pattern. A lovely little pattern taking just 32 pieces.

As I started pinning the blocks up on my design wall I quickly realised I needed some more variety in sizes for my stars… so just for fun I made this “little” variation on my twinkle block.

This mini twinkle star uses Quilters Cache’s free eight pointed star pattern. I printed this pattern out at a smaller size than the pattern dictates and as I am not worried about being too accurate with the star sizes I let my printer do the re-sizing calculations.

When I was finished with both these blocks, I tacked them up on my wall…. now this is really just a very very rough work in progress, just so I could see how the blocks looked together and so I could work out what I needed to be doing with my patterns going forward.

I have a way to go… but I think it is coming together nicely. I have worked out that I want more variety in my stars and more variety in my sizes.

18Nov2013

More Starry Nights – Paper Piecing Monday

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

Okay I am getting a little obsessive over these blocks…I am just loving how they are turning out and can not wait to start playing with them on my design wall. This week I add another fun one to the collection.

This is another pattern from Quilting on the Squares free Bonus Star collection. The pattern is called Diamond in the Rough and comes in at a measly 48 pieces.

I am hoping with next weeks block to have enough stars done to start playing with layout.

11Nov2013

Starry Night continues – Paper Piecing Monday

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday, Quilt patterns by wombatquilts

After last weeks easy (read 18 piece) blocks I decided to up the fabric piece count with this weeks star.

This fabulous star is another free pattern from Quilting on the Squares new bonus compass star patterns. The Cactus Star Block star is a 64 piece star, with enough complexity in the colouring that I had to resort to coding my pattern…

I must admit more and more orange is creeping into these stars…along with a touch of dark purple here and there. I just can not seem to limit myself too much colour wise, particularly with these more complex blocks. They work best, I think, if you have variety in your colours.