Kelly’s Quilt in the spotlight…

In the continuing showcase of Portland Modern Quilt Guild’s charity quilts, today’s quilt is Kelly’s Quilt.

This bright, fun, scrappy improv quilt was made at our Guild’s March Charity Sew Day. During the course of the day the group took a huge box of bright, kid friendly scraps and a handful of stray orphan blocks cut them up and turned it all into a pile of 12 inch blocks.

The quilt got its name during the Sew Day when this block went up on the design wall…

Joy, one of our members commented that the girl in this block looked liked one of my fellow Board members from last year, Kelly. Everyone agreed and the quilt was then referred to all day as Kelly’s quilt.

In the spirit of improv and anything goes, the top grew into a loud riot of novelty print fun…

When it came time to quilting this top, it fell, of course to none other than its name sake, Kelly Cole of Blue Bird Sews. As soon as she knew the quilt was named after her, Kelly felt she had to quilt it.

And boy did she quilt it. Kelly did a wonderful job free motion quilting a different pattern into each block…

The end result is one of the most fun games of eye spy ever in a quilt. I love the riot of colour and texture of this quilt. You know it is going to make some kid extremely happy.

19Jun2015

Rainbow Crazy

Posted in Finished Quilts, Other fun stuff, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

This week I finished up my Rainbow Improv quilt just in time to ship it to Sisters for their quilt show next month….there is nothing like an impending deadline to get you working hard!

I started this quilt a little while ago, making the blocks in between some complex paper piecing projects. It was so much fun to do something so free from rules and constraints. You can read more about the process on my original post…

I just used a rainbow of solid fabric scraps and played with colour. I must admit I did not know what the end product would look like, I just enjoyed the process of making the blocks.

Because this quilt was going to Sister’s I wanted to do something modern for the quilting, but I did not want to distract from the blocks too much. In the end I went with my beloved straight line stitches but used a rainbow selection of thread for the quilting.

Each row of blocks got their own colour, which was so much fun to do.

I just used my walking foot as my line guide…I did contemplate marking up the quilt top but this was so much easier and worked out perfectly… I got 16 lines of stitches per row and only went a little off course, one or two times.

For the back of the quilt I went with a patchwork of solid Kona greys (Ash, Charcoal and Medium Grey), which was perfect for highlighting the change in the thread colour. If you look closely you can see the rainbow effect of the quilting.

The final touch was some scrappy grey binding, a label and I was done.

I am so thrilled with how this quilt turned out. It is so different from what I usually do, but was just so much fun to make…

Quilt Details:

Blocks: 6 inch improv blocks
Fabric: Variety of solids – Kona, Michael Miller, American Made and Bella.
Finished size: 48 x 48 inches

23Jun2014

Paper piecing the Night Sky

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

This weeks Paper Piecing Monday is all about the Night Sky. This week I have and will be playing with the background blocks for my Starry Night quilt. My strategy is to use all those scrap pieces of patterns I have printed and lying around the office, with most of them so far being 6 inches square.

I started last week with a half log cabin…

and this week I added some paper pieced crazy blocks….

some left over star pattern pieces from Carol Doak’s book…

some strange flower log cabin pattern I found in amongst the paper pile…

and of course there has to be some flying geese….

I have decided to go with the majority of the sky being paper pieced, as it will make piecing the quilt top together much easier. I find that piecing paper pieced blocks and traditionally pieced blocks together can be fraught with size issues and usually if there is a large enough amount of traditional piecing I remove the paper from my blocks so that everything is “paper less”. If I am just sashing blocks then the paper stays on… it is the best way to ensure accuracy.

So the sky is underway… and despite the disparate style of blocks, they seem to work together well.

Okay I admit there is an insanity to this activity but it is kind of fun. There is no right or wrong… just lots and lots of navy blue, and a smattering of purple. Quilting heaven for me.

5May2014

Paper Piecing Monday for #opgivewarmth

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

This weekend Sarah at nohatsinthehouse.com unveiled the colour palette for May for her charity block program #opgivewarmth. I was immediately smitten with the possibilities…

So this month I will be working with this palette for all my paper piecing Monday posts…. and of course sending the blocks to Sarah so she can make some wonderful charity quilts.

To start this process I picked a few of the colours in the palette and a lovely star blocks and came up with this…

The pattern is another Craftsy free block… Lone Starburst by Six White Horse Patterns and at 56 pieces it is not too complex.

Feel free to join the palette fun and make a 3, 6 or 12 inch block and give some warmth and comfort to a child. This is a perfect way to help, as not everyone has the time to make a completed quilt for charity but making a block or two is an easy way to help. More details and information on the project can be found here.

11Apr2014

A do.Good finish…

Posted in Finished Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

Okay it took me a while but I finally got the do.Good.Stitches Icicle quilt done…. so without further ado here she is….

This quilt started life when I was doing Julie @ 627Handworks “Block Rockin” paper pieced blocks. I loved how the Icky Thump block looked and decided it needed to be a quilt all its own.

With the help of the Hope Circle of do.Good.Stitches a Icky Thump quilt was made. It was a fun process seeing how different quilters took on the paper piecing challenge and what lovely fabrics they had in their stash. I infatuated with these tiny mice in particular…

It took me a while to decide how I wanted to quilt this top up. I ummed and ahhed for weeks about what to do and finally decided to quilt to enhance the star pattern.

I was not completely sold on this quilting until I turned the quilt around and looked at the back…

..the quilting really works on the back. Now I know I am not noted for my quilting prowess, as my darling friend Lisa confirmed yesterday (I piece like a champion but quilt like a beginner)… but I am chuffed with how this looks.

For the backing I used one of the blocks I was sent that was a little small and made it the focal point. This way everyone who contributed a block is represented in this quilt.

Finally I hand bound the quilt using some solid scraps I had. It was a lovely exercise to put the finishing touches on this quilt by hand. Another do.Good quilt ready to head off to do good!

Quilt Stats
Pattern: Icky Thump paper pieced pattern
Finished quilt size: 48 x 60 inches
Fabrics: various
Backing: Kona Medium Grey and various others.