Zakka Flowers wip

Posted in WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

Last week, while I was cleaning up our very messy office/quilt fabric storage room I came across my large stash of Denyse Schmidt fabric. I have been hording Denyse’s fabric for a while, including the DS Quilts lines. I have not really used the fabric other than in bits and pieces in scrap quilts, but this week all that has changed.

All this week I have been making Denyse Schmidt Zakka flowers. I found this fabulous pattern in the book “Patchwork Please” and it just screamed to be made in my DS stash. So I have been making flowers all week… lots and lots of flowers.

During this process I have discovered:

1. I did not buy enough Flea Market Fancy – it is such a great line.

2. I did not start building my stash soon enough because some of the earlier lines are FABULOUS and missing from my collection – early Flea Market, Katie Jump Rope and Hope Valley in particular.

3. You must concentrate when paper piecing and not be distracted by your husband or you end up doing this…

So here is what a weeks worth of of Zakka flowers looks like…

And there are more to do. I have become a little obsessed with these beauties and have at least 5 more cut and ready to go. This pattern is proving to be the perfect showcase for my DS fabric stash.

So is there a line of fabric you have been stashing/hoarding and not using?

4Sep2013

Inspiration can come from the strangest places

Posted in Scrap quilts, WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

I am constantly amazed by what inspires me – where ideas and colour combinations for a quilt come from. This week’s work in progress is a good case in point.

This bright scrap quilt was inspired by my local petrol/gas station logo.

Strange I know, but I was filling the car up one day and realized I really love these two colours together. I promptly came home and pulled some scraps and made up this block.

I originally posted about this flying geese pattern back in April this year. You can find the original post, with a free paper piecing pattern here. A couple of months later and I got the urge to finish this quilt top, so I pulled fabric from my stash as well as from my scrap pile and started work.

Now I have a stack of blocks and I am gradually putting the top together.

My placement is random and fun and I have thrown in a couple of reverse blocks to break things up. It is kind of fun making the arrows go all over the place.

I have also been thinking of making some yellow arrows with yellow background, but I am not sure about it. Any thoughts?

28Aug2013

Playing with dolls – wip Wednesday

Posted in WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

Recently the Portland Modern Quilt Guild set it’s members a challenge to make Doll Quilts to help raise money for the Oregon Ballet Theater. I had never made a doll quilt before and it seems like a great way to practice my free motion quilting while helping out a good cause.

So I started with some 3 inch squares and came up with these…

What is so strange about both this little quilts is that they have made 3 inch blocks seem too big. I am going to have to go smaller – which scares me a little, but should be interesting.

I have also started playing with some 1001 Peeps scraps I had and have this little wip on my design wall.

Just in case you were wondering why I am supporting this cause so vigorously…

Yes that is me in my bright pink tutu!

21Aug2013

A Yummy work in progress

Posted in WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

Last weekend I took part in the Pacific Northwest Modern Quilt Guild Meetup – quite a mouthful hey! Guilds from around the Pacific Northwest gathered in Portland to meet, sew and basically have a great time. It was a lot of fun and I meet some amazing quilters. One of the events on Saturday was a charity sew day at Modern Domestic. I spent several glorious hours using an amazing Bernina Sewing machine making these…

As part of the goodie bag for the Meetup there was small packets 2 1/2 squares of Lecien’s “Happy Mochi yumyum” fabric (Monica, the designer of these fun fabrics is a Portland MQG member).

I gathered my packets, hunted down some of the spare packets that were left over and then bribed some more packets from some friends. Finally when I thought I had enough, I went to work.

I paired the fabric with some Kona “Snow” and happily sat chain piecing and ironing for hours. I managed to get 4 blocks of 12 done during my time at the Sew Day, then bought the whole process home to finish.

There is Yumyum all over my work space, which is fine with me. It is such a happy fun fabric and works well in 2 1/2 inch squares.

I am hoping to have the top finished by Friday, so I am off to quilt some more.

14Aug2013

Totes interesting…

Posted in Other fun stuff, WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

After the successful completion of my recent “quilted bucket” I decided to sign up for another swap. This time I signed up for a brown bag tote swap for the PNW Modern Quilt Guild meet up. I really must learn to say “no”…

As with the bucket I worked myself up into a tizzy about the whole thing. I mean a quilted container is one thing, a bag is a whole other kettle of fish. After weeks and weeks of procrastinating I finally found a pattern I thought I could do without going crazy and set out on the adventure.

The pattern I choose was from Purses Bags & Totes which I borrowed out of my local library (and which may or may not be a little overdue!).

I then had to make a paper pattern, piecing together bits of letter sized sheets. Somehow I found it easier to do this while watching Project Runway for some reason!

For the fabric we were given 1/2 a yard of denim from Robert Kaufman and I choose to supplement it with Michael Miller’s “Maze” and a selection of solids.

Once the pattern and the fabric where chosen the fun began. There were at least 386 steps this time (double the steps of the bucket) and I was so busy making the sucker I forgot to photograph everything. There was however a lot of sewing, a lot of pinning and a lot of swapping out thread – I constantly alternating between white and fuchsia bobbins.

There was also the wonderful step I love… that step that lets you know you are nearing the end… the step that is hard to do with a hand brace on… the step I like to call “turning the sucker right side out through a small hole in the lining”.

Finally, after more steps that I had counted on, I was left with this…

My tote has two pockets – one in the front and one in the back. I bordered the front one with a solid fuchsia to make it stand out a little…

To tone down the fun, loud feature fabric I made the bag gussets out of solid purple…

and used solid fuchsia to line the bag…

There are also little fuchsia ties on the side to bring the top part of the bag in…

And a large, vintage button as the front clasp (though I am not sure how effective it is!)…

The tote is complete and will be swapped out this week at our Meet up.

Now to what I have learnt.. next time I would:

1. Not leave it to the last-minute.

2. Quilt the body of the bag. The pattern did not say to do this but I think it would add a strength and structure to the tote.

3. Use a fusible fleece instead of a just a heavy-duty fusible. The pattern calls for just fusible but again I think the fleece would add a softness and structure that is needed. I think this would also help with the bag creasing (it looks like it needs ironing constantly).

4. Add a Wombat Quilt label… forgot to do it with this bag.

As they say…”live and learn”.