The Weekender Quilt

This week I am finally getting the chance to share with you a quilt I finished last month. This quilt started as a small bundle of fat quarters that were donated to the Portland Modern Quilt Guild Charity program…. I added some fabric from my stash, a couple of solids and made this beauty…

The fabric line that kicked this all off was Weekends by Erin McMorris, an old line from 2012. I had some of the line, as well as some of Erin’s Wildwood line in my stash so I was able to get enough fabric to make a decent sized quilt.

I love the colour palette of this quilt, olive green, apricot, soft purple, dusty pink and cream. It is a gentle but vibrant colour scheme.

And in amongst the florals of the fabric are a smattering of these darling bicycle…

You probably recognize the pattern I used, it is one of my favorite go to patterns, the Trip Around quilt. I have made a few Trip Around quilts now and love how easy it is to make and how every quilt is so different…

This quilt top finished up big, particularly for me, and there was no way I was going to be able to quilt it on my home machine…my busted back just will not let me. So my local quilt store, Modern Domestic, kindly allowed me to throw the quilt up on the Bernina long arm.

It was so much fun to quilt loopy flowers into this quilt using the Q24 longarm. I am slowly getting more confident with free motion….very slowly….and love the adjustable handles on this baby…. it makes it so easy to find a comfortable position to work the machine in.

As a label for the quilt I got creative, inspired by one of our Guild long armers, Dawn… and quilted PMQG into the bottom of the quilt.

The finishing touches were a scrappy solid binding of beige… not a colour I use often in binding but it worked wonderfully.

This quilt is destined for NW Impact’s program that looks after Seniors at risk… it is fun to be charity quilting this quarter for an older set, as it has forced me out of my usual bright novelty kids centered world.

Quilt Details

Name: The Weekender
Pattern: Scrappy Trip Around The World
Fabric: Weekends and Wildwood by Erin McMorris and select Kona solids
Finished Size: 60 x 72 inches

25Sep2015

Playing with a Lizzy Rainbow… and a giveaway

Posted in Quilts by wombatquilts

Last weekend my darling husband abandoned me to go on a boys camping trip, and as soon as he had walked out the door I knew exactly what I was doing with my free time….

You see just before DH left I took delivery of the latest Lizzy House range, Lovely Hunt….and I knew that I had to use it immediately so I pulled out ALL my Lizzy House fabric….

…and cut out a 5 inch square from each piece of fabric. Then, using my hexagon mini for guidance I got to work….

As there was no husband I could keep working without having to pack things away… I had squares and fabric all over the floor…and it took me a couple of days to get all the blocks up…I kept adjusting and rearranging, coming back to the design wall in between other tasks…I finally ended up with this…

The first block I placed was the low volume cats and then I just worked slowly from there. I tried to tackle one or two colours at a time, making sure that there was a flow to the colours…

Not all the fabric made it into this quilt top…

I only ended up using 168 different fabrics and had about 20 left over. I could not work out how to make the brown palette work so it did not even get a look in.

A couple of the prints had too much colour variation in them at 5 inches big to make the them work, but all the wonderful blenders…the Pearl Bracelets, the mini bracelets, the Butterflies and the chain links helped make the novelty fabrics play nice.

This quilt is definitely my quilt… it is not going anywhere but onto our couch. As the weather starts to turn icky here in the Pacific Northwest this quilt will keep me warm and cozy…. all I have to do is finish it up!

Now while I was cutting up my Lizzy Stash I cut an extra fat eight or two for a give away. By the time I had finished working through my stash I had a stack of 25 different fabrics… including quite a few out of print beauties, as well as some of the new Lovely Hunt….

So if you would like to win this fat eight bundle just leave a comment below, telling me what you would do with this wonderful bundle of colour. ~~I will draw a winner next Wednesday, and as always the contest is open to my overseas friends too.~~

This giveaway is closed. Thanks to everyone who entered and congratulations to Linda who won.

3Sep2015

A fabulous little Bee Block

Posted in Quilt patterns, Quilts by wombatquilts

It has been a while since I posted any of the Do Good Stitches quilt blocks I have been making. Every month I make blocks as part of this charity Bee and I love it. I look forward to the first of the month when the new pattern is put up on our Flickr Group and I always eagerly make the blocks. I love being challenged to make things that I would not usually make in colour schemes I may not necessarily think to put together.

Twice a year I get to be the Queen and set the block and in June I choose this block and colour scheme for my month….

The block is from a free pattern by Clover and Violet which they originally put up as part of a Christmas quilt they were making. The colour tweaks I made changed how the finished block looks and made for a striking quilt top…

I love how the yellow strings make a grid pattern and the stars just pop. Each of my fellow Do Good Bee members made two blocks, so there is so much variety in the stars, which I LOVE.

One of my favorite bits about being Queen Bee is getting to see all the blocks as they come in and ohh and ahh over the fabric used (I may have a bit of stash envy!).

When these blocks came in I absolutely fell in love with the Barbar fabric one of my fellow quilters used…

I have not seen this fabric before and am now obsessed with getting my hands on some. It is so fabulous. This quilt top is now awaiting quilting and binding and then it will go out into the world to Do Good! I am Queen again in November and I have already started planning what block I am going to set.

5Aug2015

Re-purposing Challenge Fabric

Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilts by wombatquilts

Last year the Modern Quilt Guild did a fabric challenge using Michael Miller fabric. If you follow me you will have seen a few quilts with this fabric in it, including my own Challenge entry. When our Guild handed out the fabric to its members we said that if anyone was so inclined they could use their Challenge scraps to make some blocks for the charity program. This is one of the resulting quilts…

This beautiful quilt was pieced and quilted by the wonderful Cris Pera, who is this years Guild Programs Co-ordinator.

Cris took the Michael Miller Challenge blocks and made this darling sampler quilt… using white sashing to bring the blocks together.

The blocks are all so different and there is so much amazing piecing in each block…

But I love how they all come together to make a lovely coherent quilt because they are all using the same fabric line. There should be at least one more of these quilts finished up by the end of the year…fingers crossed!

5Mar2015

A little quilt showcase

Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilts by wombatquilts

I thought I would take the opportunity to share with the wider world some of the amazing Charity Quilts that the Portland Modern Quilting Guild has produced this month. For those of you who follow me, you know that I am a pretty active charity quilter and I organize our guild’s charity sewing. I am constantly amazed at the generosity and talent of our guild when it comes to our program….

Some Guild members donate orphan blocks that we make up into quilts. Our wonderful Guild president this year, Elsa, donated the blocks that made this beauty….

Elsa donated ten blocks which were sewn into a top by me, and then quilted by Coleen of The Quilted Thistle. Photos do not do Coleen’s quilting justice, it is beautiful.

Oh and did I mention the little hedgehog?

I used the tenth donated block in the back of the quilt…

Other guild members donate fully completed quilt tops to us… Sam Hunter of Hunter Design Studio donated the top and back for this beautiful quilt….

and another guild member Gail Weiss free motioned quilted all over it, to great effect…

One or two of the quilts we donate each month start life at our Charity Sew Day, which are held at our local quilt store Modern Domestic. Once a month we invade MD’s class room space and whip up blocks which in turn are made into quilts…

I love this improv rainbow quilt top. All the blocks were made at the Charity Sew Day in January by guild members including Mary Ann, Kim, Debbie, Dawn, Michelle, and Elsa. The top was then quilted by the fabulous Dawn Graf-Thiessen, another one of the Guild’s talented long armers.

The fabric for these blocks is from scraps that were also donated to the Charity Sew program. When I receive a donation of scraps I sort them into colours (each colour has its own shoe box). What is left over is put into a catch-all box of multi coloured scraps…

..and some of those scraps were used to make blocks for this bright improv quilt. In November last year I asked Guild members to make a 12 inch square bright improv block, if they wanted, which would then be used in a Charity quilt. This top was the end result…

Bright loud and fun this quilt is definitely going to make some kid very happy… The top was quilted by last years Guild president, MaryAnn. She did a great job free motion quilting on her home machine.

The last quilt I want to share is a simple quiet baby quilt…

This top was made during a Charity Sew Day by guild member Anne. She took some precut squares that had been donated to the program and made a disappearing nine patch block. On Sew days I always pack some precut or orphan blocks so that people who do not necessarily want to make the block of the month can play.

Another guild member, Emily, free motioned this darling pattern all over the quilt using her home machine. The sweet pattern works so well on this low volume quilt.

I would like the thank all the PMQG guild members who every month help our charity program in ways big and small…either by donating fabric or blocks or their time and talent. We could not do it without you. Thank you.