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.

I am now off to vacuum up the paper and thread pieces that are littered all over our living room floor, before my husband comes home!

26Jul2013

Getting back in the swing…

Posted in Finished Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

After a month or so of being off my game I am pleased to say I have FINALLY finished a quilt top. Pausing for applause. I can not believe that the last time I posted a finished quilt/quilt top was the end of May.

So without further ado… here she is.

Yep I finished my Blush log cabin quilt top. I first posted about this block a couple of weeks ago… here. I wanted to make a quilt that used peach/apricot fabric, having seen a post on a Modern quilt site about how you should NOT use apricot in modern quilts. I really do love hearing that you should NOT do something, it just makes me want to do whatever I am not meant to do. (This feeling may possibly be the result of having an Army Colonel for a father).

My response was to find a way to make the colour work. I pulled this stash of fabric and started playing.

After a false start or two I got it to work… with this block.

Which turned into this…

Scrappy modern fabulous fun. And I think the peach/apricot fabric works perfectly. It is not at all dated or dowdy.

The fabulous array of pink and purple scraps help. What are your thoughts on the often maligned apricot/peach? Have your used it in your modern quilts?

8Jul2013

Paper Piecing Monday presents Morrison

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

I can not believe I am already at block 6 of my bright sampler quilt. This week’s block is called the Morrison…

The pattern is once again from Julie’s Block Rock’n collection. You can find the free paper piecing pattern here, along with different layouts for the block. In Julie’s test block she does more with the center of the block which I really like, and which makes for a quite different pattern.

The Morrison is not to complex a pattern and uses only 40 pieces of fabric… perfect for the scrappy approach.

As I have made it to 6 blocks, I could finally lay out the blocks and see how the quilt is coming together.

I am pleased with what I have so far. I do love how the colour pops against the neutral grey background. Six down, quite a few more to go…. so see you back here next week for installment 7.

3Jul2013

Revisiting blush – WIP Wednesday

Posted in Scrap quilts, WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

A month or so ago I pulled this stash of fabrics that I thought was lovely, soft and pretty (original post here).

The block I originally made with this fabric pull did not excite me as much as I would have liked. Fast forward a month, and after working on a collection of graphic, bright quilts, I wanted something different. This is where I ended up….

I am loving how this quilt is coming together. It is fabulously easy, fabulously scrappy and fabulously girly.

It is being made almost completely from my scrap bin, and I have only had to cut some of the longer strips so far. I have not been stressing at all about choosing the fabrics – I have full embraced just going with the first strip of fabric that I pull out of my pile. It is very liberating.

There is an “I Spy” element to these blocks which will make for a great baby/kids quilt. I want to finish this one in time for SwimBikeSew’s 100 Quilts for Kids drive which started this week.