Remember me….

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

First of all I hope you have all had a wonderful holiday season. I managed to take an unexpectedly long break over this Christmas period… and I am sorry I went radio silent for so long. It was not my intention but life has a wonderful way of throwing you curve balls…. and this curve ball involved me managing to get extreme Vertigo. The year is going out with a bang for sure!

Anyhoo I have manged to get my act together enough to bring you another Hodge Podge block for Paper Piecing Monday….

This is my Christmas star…and though a little late, I hope you will still have some fun with this pattern. I love have made quilt a few different stars using this shape, and I love this simpler version, which works well at the small 6 inch size. If you would like the pattern, the free PDF can be found here….christmas star pattern

As I am now that I seem to have a handle on the dizziness I am hoping to get back to a more regular posting schedule…. until the universe finds another fun malady to thrown at me!!!

4Dec2015

More finishes for 2015…

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

I am really really obsessed with getting some of my quilts finished this year… and I am running out of year. So the push is on… I have recently finished up a quilt top I made for the 100 Quilts for Kids drive, but my health hindered me finishing it on time.

This was a fun and easy quilt to make. I used some of the thousands of 3 inch squares I have cut over the last year or so from my scraps. The background fabric is a grey/blue hatch fabric by Timeless Treasures. I love how it plays against the solids.

Came together so easily using chain piecing. I just sat at the machine sewing a background fabric to a solid, one after another. I had an impressive string of fabric pieces by the end of the first stage.

I kept the quilting simple, just straight lines through the background fabric. For some reason I did not want to run stitches through the solid fabric… and I love the plaid feel this quilting added.

For the back of the quilt I found the perfect piece of Ikea fabric…

Somehow those bathing beauties just seemed to work. I have been hoarding this fabric for a little while and was waiting for the perfect quilt to use it with. To finish it all off I used a selection of Kona solid greys to bind the quilt.

I spent yesterday morning at Project Linus Portland processing quilts… including this quilt.

Quilt Details:

Pattern: Simple four patch using 3 inch squares
Fabric: Solid scraps and Hatch in Steel by Timeless Treasures
Size: 40″ x 50″

30Nov2015

A Rolling Square kind of day….

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

Welcome to the continuing saga that is Paper Piecing Monday…. I really did not know when I started this tradition it would last this long and produce so many patterns. This week I have another Hodge Podge block…and another Rolling block, this time the Rolling Square.

I really love these blocks in miniature and I am hankering to make a mini quilt using this pattern. There is so much you can do with it… all you need is a pattern sheet and some coloured pencils. So grab some pencils, print out the Rolling Square colouring sheet and let your imagination run wild. Here is one I made earlier…

Once you have finished playing with colour placement, download the pattern for the 6 inch block and get creating…. Rolling square pattern

25Nov2015

Texas Flower Block for Paper Piecing Wednesday…

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

So somehow Monday came and went without a paper piecing pattern….and so did Tuesday. Not sure what happened but in Sesame Street styling this week’s Paper Piecing Monday is being bought to you by Wednesday, the colour green and the state of Texas…..

This traditional pattern is called the Texas Flower and there are a couple of variations on this in the older pattern books…but I went with the simpler version.

As with all my Hodge Podge blocks so far you can find the free pattern for this 6 inch block here…. Texas Flower pattern.

20Nov2015

On a mission…

Posted in Finished Quilts, Project Linus by wombatquilts

Now that I am getting back to full health I feel like I have so much to catch up on…and first thing on my To Do list is to clear some of my WIPs out of the house. The main impetuous for the clear out is the fact that you can not currently access our spare bedroom because of the pile of batting, quilts and fabric…our spare bedroom is Charity Quilt central! I have a wonderfully patient and understanding husband who is somewhat blind to fabric piles and quilting mess, but even he has started commenting.

So as we head to Thanksgiving I will be sharing mine and PMQG’s most recent quilt finishes before they head out to their respective charities. To start proceedings I give you this wonderful little quilt…

This quilt was made, along with a larger version, at one of the Portland Modern Quilt Guild Charity Sew days. This was a fun day where I bought a huge box of blue scraps, a smattering of white and grey scraps and we all made log cabins.

Somewhere in the process a touch of orange was added, at the insistence of one of our amazing Guild Members Juline, and viola you have magic.

The orange really makes the quilt sing. All the improv log cabin blocks are trimmed to 12 inches finished and this four by four version of the quilt is headed to Project Linus. The larger version of this quilt (six by seven blocks) is currently out with one of our talented long-armers.

When pulling blocks for this smaller version of the quilt I made sure to get some great novelty prints in the mix.

This was such a fun and easy project to do with the group, as once again there is no right or wrong, just playing with colour. The quilt is backed with a darling Laura Ashley fabric that seemed appropriate and bound with some navy batik fabric which was kindly donated to the Guild by Hoffman fabrics.

quilt back

Thanksgiving does seem like the perfect time to share some of the amazing quilts that our Guild has made to help our community. I am so very thankful to everyone who helps out with this program.