Tackling some challenging blocks

Posted in Quilt patterns, WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

Things came to a crunch this week with some very over due Bee blocks that could no longer be ignored, no matter how hard I tried.

One of the things I love about doing quilting Bees is that you are challenged, every month, to make different blocks and for me it is a good way to try new, non paper piecing stuff. This month’s challenges included…

This block is 12 1/2 inches square and was requested as part of the ScrapBeelicious Bee. When I first looked at the pattern I was a little overwhelmed, but I cut the squares as I was cutting fabric for another quilt and chain piecing made the process less daunting.

The pattern, Star Value by Happy Quilting, is perfect for a Bee, because you do not want to be making a whole quilt of these suckers. The free tutorial also has the calculations to make the block in different sizes from 12 inches up to 28 inches.

Surprisingly, I had a much more harrowing experience making these Bee blocks…

The ScrapBeelicious January block (yes yes I am very very late with this one) challenged us to make the Ann Marie Horner’s Feather Blocks…

For some reason these were the blocks I had to unpick the most. The center grey spine of the feather was too short and I struggled with getting the pattern pieces to align. In the end I just wanted to make a paper piecing pattern to make this sucker… it would have been so much easier!

The last lot of Bee blocks for this week were a simple and fun….

My February do.Good.Stitches Block was the Starflower block by Ellison Lane. This block was so easy and the pattern makes two blocks at a time… genius!

So I have now done my quota of half square triangles (HST) for the month. For the rest of the month I am only tackling those suckers via paper piecing.

26Feb2014

Colour Play – Grey

Posted in Colour Play, Quilt patterns by wombatquilts

The last week or so I have been playing with a different kind of colour combination…one that really has not got a lot of “colour” in it. My inspiration was a very old photo that hangs on our living room wall…

(Please note..I can neither confirm or deny that I am in this photo).

Anyway I have always loved black and white photographs, which really are more grey and white than black and white, and thought why not play with greys in a quilt. The end result was this block…

I used another fabulous free paper piecing pattern from Quilters Cache called Atlantic Sea. The block pieces look rather strange and a pattern is not immediately obvious.

But when you put more and more of the blocks together you get this wild, slightly mesmerizing pattern.

I think as this quilts grows more and more patterns and shapes will become visible. It is really a little trippy but cool.

12Feb2014

Colour Play Turqoise

Posted in Colour Play, Quilt patterns, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

This week I decided to play with turquoise and my all time favorite neutral, navy blue. There was something about this colour combination and snow that just seemed to work. First I raided my scraps and then pulled this bundle from my stash…

I had used navy and turquoise together before, but with “radiant orchid” and some electric blues thrown into the mix.

This time I wanted to keep it simple, clean, cool. I choose an easy block called “World Without End”. This classic quilt block dates back to the 1900’s and I found some wonderful old examples when searching on-line, including one from the Spencer Museum of Art. For my project I used Quilters Cache’s free paper piecing pattern which you can find here.

This is another quick, fun block that packs a punch, and is perfect for scraps. I just loved how the strong colour contrast with this pattern.

I was surprised how big my turquoise stash was and it has been great fun cutting into it for this project. I have added this to my list of “must finish” for 2014… a list that keeps getting bigger. I need some sewing fairies pronto!

23Jan2014

My blue period continues…

Posted in Other fun stuff, Quilt patterns, Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

This week I got a little side tracked by a pile of scraps sitting around my sewing space. Most of the time I do a good job of keeping my creative urges under control – I usually jot the idea down in my note-book and go back to what I should be doing. This week the “should be doing” was quilting my sister in laws quilt... instead I took the scraps from that quilt and made some of these…

Yes the scraps from the project I SHOULD have been finishing tempted me into making log cabin blocks. In my defense I had a whole pile of 2 1/2 inch strips of fabric already cut and lots and lots of scrappy little ends of fabric. They cried out to be made into a log cabin, and I could not ignore it. The end result of this diversion is this lovely little top…

This 40 x 40 inch quilt top took me about 4 episodes of “Top of the Lake” to make and came together really easily. I already knew the colours worked together and all the cutting was done I just had to make log cabins.

I am really beginning to love what you can do with solids. I struggled with the first quilt with the lack of pattern, but now can not wait to make my next solids quilt. I have a cunning plan already.

This fun little exercise not only distracted me from my quilting to do list, but also added another UFO to my pile, but it was worth it. The only hard thing about this quilt so far has been photographing it in the howling wind this morning…

29Nov2013

No turkey here…just some Urban Chickens

Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilt patterns, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

After a day full of Thanksgiving turkey yesterday, I thought I would stick with the poultry theme, but shake it up a little. Somewhere in between baking tons and tons of pies this week I managed to finish my Urban Chicken Quilt.

This block is so fun and so easy to make… I set it as one of my Do.good.Stitches Bee blocks so you will be seeing another version on this site in the next month or so. My tutorial for making this block can be found here.

I really do love how easy this quilt block is. I think it will be my new “go to” block when I need to get a kids quilt done quickly. Though next time I think I will put some more prints into the quilt, not just tone on tones. I also want to try to make one just using solids. Oh I have too many ideas and not enough time.

For the quilting on this, I just went with straight lines, running either side of the ditch. At some point, as my FMQ gets better I would like to quilt one of these with “chickens”, that is triangles, all over it.

To back this quilt I used the last of my IKEA green and blue fabric. This fabric has been a great way to back my quilts and I am going to keep my eye out for more of it. The backing is one solid piece, but it looks like I have sewn together a pile of solid fat quarters.

The finishing touch is an electric blue binding… I seem to go through a lot of binding in electric blue for some reason. It is either that or someone/something is eating my blue binding.