Oh what a week

After last week’s spring clean I felt so refreshed and energized, and it is reflected in the fun I have had this week. The highlight of the week has to have been having Jacquie Gering of Tallgrass Prairie Studios talk at the Portland Modern Quilt Guild. I love the freedom of Jacquie’s quilts and am sooo inspired by seeing her quilts in person and hearing her talk. I can not wait to cut my poppy quilt up and try to make something modern and different from it. Stay tuned.

This week I also managed to finish a quilt. Surprising I know, but I felt I had to get something completed. So here it is…

This quilt started a little while ago with this modern Ohio star block (posted here)….

And it grew into this fun bright quilt. Once again with the block you can see the star pattern, but with the quilt you see so much more (mainly lots and lots of triangles!).

I struggled for a couple of weeks over the backing of this quilt. I pulled out and prepared a couple of printed fabric choices but nothing seemed to work just right for me. Then I woke up yesterday morning with the perfect solution. I grabbed some solids and little bit of quilters linen and made this backing piece.

I decided to quilt along several of the block seams to really highlight the triangles in the pattern. I used lime green thread so that you could really see the quilting on the back. I do not usually do this, but in the spirit of new things, I gave it a try.

It does mean that you can see a couple of my not so straight lines but I am embracing the imperfections.

I am entering this quilt in the Bloggers Quilt Festival in the two colour category. It is the first time I have entered a quilt and the quality of the quilts entered is amazing. Check out the site, in particular their quilters focus, for some amazing inspiration.

Now I am off to do some more quilting. I have a stack of quilts that unfortunately are not going to finish themselves… unless someone will lend me some quilting elves!

8May2013

Taking Stock

Posted in Project Linus, Quilts, WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

WIP Wednesday seemed like a good time to take stock of what I have “in progress” at the moment. So here goes…

1. Blocks almost ready to be made into a top…

Paper Piecing Monday blocks… one block to go!

Granny squares ready to go

2. Quilt top needing the paper pattern removed…

3. Quilt tops waiting to be basted and quilted….

Sunburnt Country top

paper pieced square in square modern scrap quilt

Square in square quilt top

1001 Peeps square in square quilt top

4. Quilts ready to go to Project Linus…

7. Ongoing project that may take me years….

Hexagon flowers… all hand done!

6.. Very old quilts that have been sitting in my cupboard (or in storage in Australia) for YEARS…

My first ever quilt top… circa 1997

1930’s Star quilt… circa 2000

Kaffe Fassett floral quilt top… circa 2008

Novelty rainbow quilt top… circa 2009

So where do I start…. It is all so overwhelming!

3May2013

An abundancy of turquioise

Posted in Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

This month there are a couple of resolutions in our house, that may or may not work. Firstly my husband thought it would be a good idea if we did not eat any processed sugar during May. I do not remember agreeing to this at all, but it seems that sugar is off the menu. If the posts get erratic, the colours get to bright or I stop making sense, it is because I am suffering withdrawals.

The second resolution for May was to finish up more of the quilt tops I have floating around. This resolution came about as I finished another two quilt tops this week and the pile of UFOs grew to an embarrassing level. More quilting less piecing. Combine this resolution with the other one and it could be an interesting month!

Anyway the two tops I finished up this week are both from the same pattern…. I blogged them originally here. I used this pattern…

..to make this quilt.

This was a fun scrap quilt to make – lots of turquoise, navy (my favorite colour) and pink/purple. I really like this colour combination, which I stumbled across while playing with my piles of fabric.

The other quilt top I finished was my 1001 Peeps top.

I was battling the wind when I was taking these photos. It is the problem of photographing tops as opposed to full quilts – there is no weight to hold them in place in even a gentle breeze.

It is another reason why I have to quilt these suckers before I post. I see a lot of basting in my near future!

26Apr2013

A Trip around

Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

Like a lot of quilters out there, I have been seeing Trip Around quilts and blocks on-line for ages and ages. I had seen some amazing versions but I had never really thought about making one myself… then the Portland Modern Quilting Guild set it as one of their charity blocks. That is when the trouble started.

First I checked out the pattern instructions from Bonnie Hunter at Quiltsville. Looked easy enough. My initial intention was to make just on block for the charity quilt so I cut 6 strips of fabric and made this.

What was not included in the instructions was how addictive this process was. My one block very quickly and easily grew to be this.

Lots of black & whites mixed with loud obnoxious colours makes for a fun quilt.

I backed the quilt with some Ikea fabric, did some diagonal quilting and machine bound it. I had never bound anything with solid black before but I think it works well with this quilt.

I am digitally adding my Trip to the growing collection out there on the web and then sending the real thing off to Project Linus for some one to snuggle under.

And in the spirit of Trip Around… here is visual trip around my quilting space (also known as our Living Room) as it looks this morning.

That is… wip on the floor… fabric on the table waiting to be cut…. batting waiting to be used…. and my hexies work station on the couch/sofa arm. Yes I am a messy quilter.

19Apr2013

Sunburnt Country… an almost finished Friday

Posted in Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

I was recently commissioned to do a baby quilt by a family friend. She wanted a quilt that felt Australian without being too overtly Aussie. After much discussions and looking at some quilt reference we settled on the idea of “A Sunburnt Country”. There is a fabulous old Australian Poem, whose most famous stanza is:

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!

With the inspiration in mind, I ended up creating this…

I only finished the top last night, after I got back from the Portland Modern Quilting Guild. It is made up of 378 three-inch squares and measures 45 inches wide by 52 1/2 inches tall.

I pieced this quilt together in sections, a trick I learned from a Oh Fransson’s post about her Sparkle punch quilt. This process worked wonders and made it (a) less daunting to piece and (b) easier to align the blocks. I worked in 6 x 6 block sections.

As you can tell from this dodgy photo, I struggled with the darker purple fabrics. I had to dig deep into the fabric stash to find enough appropriate fabrics to finish off the top corners of the quilt.

When laying out this quilt I did play with a couple of colour variations, including replacing the purple with browns and with adding some green into the mix. Neither of these options worked well, particularly seeing this was a baby quilt for a girl. In the spirit of girly fun, when I was selecting my fabric I had a great time finding novelty and fussy cuts prints. Hidden in the quilt are elephants, dogs, chairs, boats, deer, flags, flowers, stars, ducks, oranges, lady bugs, bees, bears, hearts and so much more.

This weekend I will hopefully get the top basted and ready for quilting next week. I have been so focused on completing quilt tops that I have not actually finished a quilt for over a week. I am definitely slacking!