Paper Piecing Monday

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

Welcome to this weeks installment of Paper Piecing Monday. This week I add another block to my grey/bright sampler quilt from Julie at 627handworks. May I present my version of Marley…

Now I am not sure that the scrappy approach worked with this pattern. I think if I was to do it again I would go with a single fabric for the back ground – just so the colour popped more.

I do love this block. It is different from my usual stars and I think that this take on flying geese is really quit fun. You can find the free Marley paper piecing pattern here. I am really loving Julie’s patterns and so excited to try Garfunkel.

Just for fun I am linking up with “Let’s get Acquainted” which is being hosted this week at Heart of Charnwood.

14Jun2013

Going slowly insane…

Posted in Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

First up thanks to everyone for the kind thoughts and comments. I was really touched.

I am doing good but was not warned how boring it is to recover from surgery. The first 4 to 5 days you are so tired and sore and doped up that you do not care. It is the days that follow that are really annoying me. Obviously patience is not my strong suit.

I am on day 9 of re-corporation and I am driving myself and my husband crazy. I am well enough that I am alert and functioning but not well enough to be able to bend down or sit at a sewing machine or do anything for more than an hour without dozing off. My life has become a cycle of watching old episodes of Deadliest Catch, making hexies and sleeping. Yipee!

I have been mainly sewing my hexagon flowers together. My placement is rather random – my husband keeps wanting to add a pattern to the placement but I like to just go with the flow. Here is what I have so far….

It may not look like much but I also had to do some running repairs. Some of my earlier stitches were not as small as they needed to be. I had to go back into about 4 flowers and re-stitch.

The back side of this quilt shows just how much work goes into these suckers. Lots of tiny hand stitches…

I am a little burnt out on hexagons, but they are really the only quilting I can handle at the moment. My hope is that by Sunday I will be back behind the sewing machine. Come hell or high water there will be a Paper Piecing Monday. Promise.

31May2013

Finally a proper finish

Posted in Finished Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

Today I am happy to say I finally finished a quilt – quilted, bound and labeled. It has been two weeks since I finished a quilt and I was feeling a little antsy about it all. So without further ado, here she is…

If you are a regular to the site you will have seen this quilt in various stages of production, but she is now all finished!

I must admit I have struggled today to get her photographed properly. The lighting conditions have not been at all co-operative, but fourth time is a charm.

I did straight line stitching using a magenta thread. I really did not know what colour thread to go with – white did not seem right, navy was a little too dark, green too light. The thread choice is okay but it is not quite what I wanted. Too late now right!

I backed the quilt with some IKEA fabric that I thought went well. Bright and cheery.

The quilting is quite effective on the back of the quilt at least!

I bound in solid navy. It is my go to binding and just seems to bring everything together nicely.

I am linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for Friday finishes.

Have a great weekend!

24May2013

An almost finished Friday

Posted in Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

Last night I finally finished pulling all the paper off my floral crackers quilt. 80 blocks, 79 different floral fabrics and 1/2 a ton of paper later I have this beauty.

There was finally a break in the rain this morning, so I dashed out to take this photo. Not perfect conditions but I was glad for any sort of respite from the deluge.

Enough about the weather… back to quilting. The top is made using the traditional cracker quilt block. I paper piece this top but you can find links to making the pattern on my original post here.

I used as many bright multi-coloured floral fabrics as I could find and only accidentally doubled up on one fabric. There is a lot of Kaffe Fassett in this quilt along with Amy Butler and Denyse Schmidt.

I used random black and white fabric for the background of the pattern but if I was to make this quilt again I would probably go with a low volume fabric option with more colour in it. Don’t get me wrong, I like the black and white but I think in hindsight more colour in the background would have made a different type of quilt top.

This quilt already has a home to go to. I have till the middle of June to get it finished, so it can be presented to a graduating foster kid in the Portland area. Project Linus every year makes sure kids graduating from the foster system & high school have a quilt to take with them on the next stage of their life.

But for now I am off to clean up the paper mess I have made…. it is the curse of paper piecing!

I am linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for their finished Friday… I think a finished quilt top counts right!

17May2013

Oh what a week

Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

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!