Tackling some challenging blocks

Posted in Quilt patterns, WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

Things came to a crunch this week with some very over due Bee blocks that could no longer be ignored, no matter how hard I tried.

One of the things I love about doing quilting Bees is that you are challenged, every month, to make different blocks and for me it is a good way to try new, non paper piecing stuff. This month’s challenges included…

This block is 12 1/2 inches square and was requested as part of the ScrapBeelicious Bee. When I first looked at the pattern I was a little overwhelmed, but I cut the squares as I was cutting fabric for another quilt and chain piecing made the process less daunting.

The pattern, Star Value by Happy Quilting, is perfect for a Bee, because you do not want to be making a whole quilt of these suckers. The free tutorial also has the calculations to make the block in different sizes from 12 inches up to 28 inches.

Surprisingly, I had a much more harrowing experience making these Bee blocks…

The ScrapBeelicious January block (yes yes I am very very late with this one) challenged us to make the Ann Marie Horner’s Feather Blocks…

For some reason these were the blocks I had to unpick the most. The center grey spine of the feather was too short and I struggled with getting the pattern pieces to align. In the end I just wanted to make a paper piecing pattern to make this sucker… it would have been so much easier!

The last lot of Bee blocks for this week were a simple and fun….

My February do.Good.Stitches Block was the Starflower block by Ellison Lane. This block was so easy and the pattern makes two blocks at a time… genius!

So I have now done my quota of half square triangles (HST) for the month. For the rest of the month I am only tackling those suckers via paper piecing.

5Feb2014

Colour Play – Brown

Posted in Scrap quilts, WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

Last weekend, while my husband was away on a “dude’s weekend” I took the opportunity to clean up my stash a little. Needless to say there was fabric from one end of the house to the other… it looked like a fabulous colourful fabric bomb had gone off. During this process I realized I had somehow accumulated a decent size stash of brown fabric. I am still not sure how this happened as brown is definitely not a colour I use at all, ever, but now I had found it I of course had to use it.

I love a good challenge and finding good uses for brown fabric is a perfect challenge for 2014. Fired up it took me less than 5 minutes to find some inspiration in my house, and the game was on.

This inspiration, a glass vase….

became this fabric pull…

The pattern I chose was a fabulously simple free paper piecing number from Quilters Cache… the Fly Foot 2 .

Which when you do alternating colour blocks turns out like this…

These blocks when added to other blocks make this amazing plaid like pattern…

For the first time in my quilting life I have used brown as a predominate colour and I love the results. There will be more brown combinations in my future… so stay tuned.

29Jan2014

A colour dilema…

Posted in WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

A couple of days ago I realized that January was slowly slipping away and I had not managed to tick any projects off my 2014 To Do List. Drastic action was needed so I pulled out my Tula Pink blocks and got to work. I made the final couple of blocks, put them up on the design wall and stared at them for a day (very constructive use of time I hear you say).

I blame my husband for the delay, actually I blame him for a lot of things, but this was really his fault. You see last year when I started this project he did this…

It made me laugh at the time but when it came time to put the top together using just pink blocks something seemed to be missing. The layout with the Tardis was fun but it took away from the Tula Pink feel of the quilt. I then made this…

I thought a blue Tula Block would work but it just did not seem to have the same impact as a Tardis. In the end I have chosen to go with all pink blocks. I have added 1 1/2 inch sashing around the blocks and I am slowly sewing it together.

I have two more rows to go and before the top is all pieced…

As I add each row I keep thinking “should I add the blue”. I am constantly second guessing my decision.

I am loving the pink blocks together but there is something missing. AUGH… this is driving me crazy. What would you do?

15Jan2014

Trying to quilt by my own advice…

Posted in WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

This week I discovered that there is a down side to giving advice on the internet – because it is there in black and white you need to make sure you are taking your own advice. My “Quilting Bee Etiquette” has come back to haunt me this week as I struggled to get my December Bee blocks out on time. You see blocks are generally considered late if they arrive past the 15th of the following month, and I could not, should not, would not be late. So this last week has been about getting Bee blocks done.

First up was the last block for my Scrapbeelicious December run. I had done one Christmas themed block for Nicole at Modern Handcraft but needed another block. My original plan was to do a 12/2 inch Dresden plate. I cut the fabric, sewed it all together and discovered it was 20 1/2 inches big. Whoops. Some quick re-calculations, more cutting, more sewing and voila, the b%$#y block was 14 inches square. My solution was this…

Scrapbeelicious December Block –

An “adjusted” Dresden Plate block that is exactly 12 1/2 inches square. Seeing this is a sampler quilt my adjustments will work well. This block, along with my Snowflake block should be winging their way to Nicole today (as per the Bee Etiquette rules my Queen knows they will be late).

I did make the deadline for my other December blocks by the skin of my teeth. The Do.good.stitches Hope Circle blocks for December were easy, I cut the fabric out and then promptly forgot to sew it all together. A polite reminder from the Queen had me sewing them up and posting them the same morning…

That same day I decided to tackle the January Do.good blocks to avoid the embarrassment of another reminder email (I like to be on time or early wherever possible)…

Wonky log cabins in blue with a grey border… easy peasy..

My final WIP for this week is not a really a Bee block, but is the start of the Portland Modern Quilt Guild’s 2014 Medallion Quilt. This year, instead of doing a BOM our guild is doing a Medallion quilt, starting with a center 16 1/2 inch center block.

Yep I have become a little Dresden obsessed. I blame my EZ Dresden ruler… it is all its fault, plus I see it as a challenge to improve my really bad math skills!

8Jan2014

Going with the flow…

Posted in WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

Last Friday I became determined to make my sister in-law a quilt. I had spent months procrastinating, putting idea after idea up on the design wall and pulling it all down again. All I really had to go on was that she loves blue and is a no-nonsense, straight talking, fabulous woman. Finally I decided to do a blue trip around the world quilt. I delved into my stash and pulled out all my blue solids, which I was surprised to discover was a substantial wad and set to work.

I spent Saturday merrily cutting 2 1/2 x 16 1/2 inch strips from my pile of solids. I loved the colours together but I was becoming less and less sure about the quilt design. As my darling husband commented on Saturday evening “don’t those trip around quilts tend to have patterns in them”. Yes my nervousness at the lack of pattern in my fabric was getting to me. I had made a solid trip along before which turned out nicely…

but I was still nervous about it. With no other viable options at this point, I continued the process – sewing the strips in groups of 6, then sewing it into a tube, then cutting the tube into 2 1/2 strips. If you have done a Trip Around the World you know the process… if you do not know what I am talking about Quiltsville is where it all started. So now I had a stack of strips of squares…

Usually you pull your tube’s apart and put them back together in just a way to get this block…

but it was at this point in the process I threw out the instructions and went a little wild. I started sewing random strips together so my blocks look more like this…

I was not sure if it would work, but the idea of doing another Trip Around quilt all of a sudden was not at all appealing. So now I have a wild, pixelated, modern quilt that is coming together like this…

And I love it. I am so thrilled with how my deviation from the plan is working out. I am embracing the random and the crazy and just going with it. So far I have 8 blocks done and have 22 more to go. My design wall currently looks like this…