I have a confession to make…

Posted in Quilt patterns, Scrap quilts, WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

…deep breath…. here goes….I am a messy quilter. You may not be able to tell from what I have put up on the site but in the last couple of weeks the truth has become harder and harder to ignore.

So what has forced this revelation…. Quilting Bees. Over the last couple of weeks I have been getting quilt blocks from around the country – I was “Queen Bee” for both ScrapBeeLicous Bee and Do.good.stitches Hope Circle.

So here is the evidence, as I see it. Exhibit A…. a block received for the Do.good.stitches Bee.

Please note the neat seams. The lack of loose threads. The overall precision and beauty of the back of the block.

Now Exhibit B…. my Icky Thump block for the same quilt.

It is down right embarrassing. In my defense I taught myself to quilt and never knew that you should carefully cut threads. Since seeing my fellow quilters blocks I have started taking more care with my threads but I still trim my paper piecing with scissors.

With these startling revelations and confessions, there is only one saving grace…. you really can not tell from the front of the quilts.

When setting this block for the Bee, I did not realise that most of my fellow Hope Circle had not paper pieced. I believe I drove a couple of them to drink. It really did not occur to me that there are people out there that have not tried paper piecing – I wrongly assumed that it was a technique commonly used.

I set this block because it was an easy block to do, but very very effective. Some of you may recognize the inspiration from a post earlier in the year.

I made this block using Julie at 627handworks free Icky Thump paper piecing pattern. I loved it so much and was determined to make a full quilt in this colour way.

The quilt is coming together nicely… I am still awaiting a few more blocks in the post and then I can put the top together. The finished top will be 4 blocks wide x 5 blocks long…. and fabulous.

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.

8Nov2013

Urban Chicken Fun

Posted in Quilt patterns, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

This week I manged to finish my first Urban Chicken quilt top…. I am so excited. I love this modern easy fun pattern.

The Urban Chicken block was designed for the Portland Modern Quilt Guild meetup by Michelle Freedman. You can find my original post and tutorial on making the block here.

When laying the quilt top out I had great fun making the chickens run all around… there really is a sense of silly to this quilt block that I love.

It is also a very forgiving block – wonky triangles, lots of scraps and bold bright colours. You can get away with a few squiffy seams if need be.

This is Urban Chicken number 1 for me. I have another one following close behind in warmer colours, as I set this pattern for my Do.good.stitches bee this month. You have been warned!

19Aug2013

Flying Geese Paper Piecing Monday style

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday, Quilt patterns, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

This week I am taking a short break from my grey sampler quilt to share a little Bee crazy with you. I was super excited to recently joined a do.good. Stitches circle. I excitedly did the first blocks for my Bee, forgot to photograph them and then sent them to the wrong person. I was off to a flying start with the group!

Then the August block was posted and I must admit I gasped a little. This is why – 3 inch flying geese culminating in a 12 inch block with 96 pieces…

The requested blocks were from Liesel Made’s crazy mini patchwork sampler series. You can find the original post here. As I read the instructions for making the block I thought there had to be a way to make this which was not going to freak me out. My answer was of course PAPER PIECING! Paper piecing was the only way I personally was going to be able to make those precise little triangles.

So I pulled out my graph paper and made a pattern.

In the end these were fun blocks to make. I used up lots of little scraps which always makes me happy and messed with the triangle layout a little. If you want to make this block the paper way, please feel free to use my graph paper pattern – 3 inch Flying Geese pattern.

Next week it will be back to our regularly scheduled program.

16Aug2013

Star String quilt top finished

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

I am so thrilled to have finally finished my star string quilt top… and extra thrilled that it turned out exactly like I pictured it. So without further ado, here she is in all her scrappy wonderfulness…

I must admit my strong feelings about this quilt maybe effected slightly because I designed the quilt block. You can find the free paper piecing pattern and details about my inspirations here on the original post.

I had a lot of fun making this quilt slowly, piece by piece. Using colour pencils and paper I worked out each square in advance.

The central stars are made from lots of little bits from my scrap pile. The black and white fabrics were a little bit of scrap pile and a lot of stash cutting.

I wanted bright colours for the stars and mainly worked with red, yellow, orange, blue, green and purple with a smattering of apricot, fuchsia and citron.

The finished quilt top is 62 inches square – five blocks across five blocks down. This of course meant there was a lot of paper to pull off the back.