Modern Sampler Quilt

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

Today I wanted to share with you another one of the beautiful quilts members of my Quilt Guild made for our charity program.

This amazing Modern Sampler quilt was pieced using blocks that members of the Guild made a couple of years ago as part of our BOM program. One of our members, Michelle took a bag of blocks and whipped up this amazing top… using fun strips of solid colours to make the different sized blocks work.

I love the colour way… that purple and aqua in particular make me very happy.

Another of our fabulous members, Colleen Barnhardt of The Quilted Thistle then took the top and wove her magic all over it. Colleen has only been quilting on a long arm for under a year which is so hard to believe because she is so AMAZING!

She quilted the most fabulous array of patterns over the different blocks…

The quilting adds so much to this quilt…. and my photos do not do it justice…

And all around the border of the quilt, Colleen added a geometric pattern in variegated cotton that just adds the most perfect border and bought the quilt together.

Yesterday I dropped off this quilt, and 11 others (including Wonky Trees) to Camp Erin, a local camp for kids who dealing with the death of someone close to them. I am so proud that our Guild does such great work for such good causes.

31Jul2015

Not just one tree in the forest…

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

Today I am spending the day delivering the latest batch of Portland Modern Quilt Guild charity quilts to a couple of charities around town…. so over the next couple of days I would like to share some of the beauties that are being dropped off starting with…

Our wonderful wonky tree quilt. Now if you have been following me for a while you will have seen a version of this quilt last year, when we made our first wonky tree charity quilt… you can check out my original post for tips on making the blocks…

This quilt block has become an annual exercise and makes for such a fun Sew Day. Basically anything goes tree wise and this year was no different. We had differently shaped trees…

Really big trees…

And really small trees….

The forest is so varied and every one has a blast just making what ever type of tree they wanted… there is no right or wrong but most people kept within the 8 inch square guideline….

We used lots of our donated scraps, and I love this exercise in particular because it allows us to use up some of the browns and olive greens we have in our donated charity stash… colours that are not always easy to use in kids quilts.

I always throw in some bright greens to the mix to add a splash of vibrancy to the forest.

To finish it all off the amazing Nancy Stovall of Just Quilting, did an awesome job. She choose an all over pattern that hints at the wind blowing through the trees. I love it so much.

For the back of the quilt one of our fabulous volunteers, Betty, made a huge tree block….

..that was just perfect for the back. This quilt was truly a wonderful group effect… thanks goes out to everyone who played along and helped make this wonderful forest.

27Jul2015

More red white and blue…

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

As July comes to an end so does my red, white and blue pinwheel blocks….

I mixed the colouring up this week and I love the red background…I hope it works with the other blocks being made for the Quilting Bee…

There is another fun way to make this block, which gives you a very different looking block…still with a lot of movement in it.

If you would like to use the free pattern just download the PDF by clicking the link…Fireworks Pinwheel Block.

Enjoy….

24Jul2015

A low volume scrap vortex…

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

This week I finished up my scrap vortex quilt… I actually started this quilt a couple of weeks ago in a bid to use some of my low volume scraps and after I found the wonderful QAL at Crazy Mom Quilts.

Amanda Jean leads the Scrap Vortex Quilt Along and does a great job of taking you through, step by step, making these blocks.. and makes dealing with all your scraps easy and manageable.

You start by sewing similar size scraps together and then sew those bits together and before you know it you have a quilt block.

For my quilt I trimmed my blocks to 12 1/2 unfinished.

It was so much fun putting this together. I was surprised by how many fun novelty prints I had that were low volume.

When I was selecting scraps for this project I chose only fabrics that had a white/cream background with a print on top of that back ground. There are probably five or six scraps that were pastel (a soft light colour fabric with a little white in it) but I wanted to predominantly white/creams.

You can see an example of one of those prints in the photo above… there are three little blocks that are a soft background with a white print. It seems like such a little thing, but the fabric reads differently than those around it…it reads darker and more solid than the print would suggest.

So if you are doing a low volume quilt, audition your fabrics carefully and if you can, use the camera on your phone to take a photo of the fabric and turn it into a greyscale image to see how the fabric actually reads.

For the back of the quilt I used bigger scraps and my left over bits and pieces to make an extra large block…with more novelty goodness in it… including my favorite bit…

Yep I managed to squeek in a koala bear…

For the binding I used the left overs from last weeks quilt….solid Kona pastels.

This quilt is headed to Project Linus for some kid to love and treasure…

Quilt Details:

Pattern: Scrap Vortex by Crazy Mom Quilts
Fabric: Various low volume Scraps
Finished Size: 48 x 48 inches

22Jul2015

A slightly unusual wedding quilt in progress…

Posted in WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

This week I have been having a blast making a wedding quilt for a darling friend… but this quilt is not you usual pretty, demur wedding quilt… it is fun and foxy all the way…

This week I have been using Elizabeth Hartman’s fabulous Fancy Fox pattern to make foxes…lots and lots of foxes…

I have been surprised how quickly and easily these blocks come together. After selecting my fabric and precutting everything it has been a fun process of chain piecing and cutting and chain piecing some more.

There has been a fabulous sense of achievement as I have finished up a fox and put it up on my design wall. The hardest part (and most fun part!) was selecting the fabric. I knew that I wanted the traditional fox colour of red…

and then I threw in a little orange…

and to add tonal variety I added some apricot and pink foxes…

The foxes I love the most are the ones with striking patterns… it was such a fun process to audition fabrics, thinking about what sort of foxes they would make.

I have only a few more foxes to go before I have them all done. For the background fabric I went with Hatch fabric from Time Treasures in Coal…and I love how it makes the foxes pop.

I have a few weeks to get this quilt finished so I am heading back to the sewing machine to finish up the last of the blocks. I really seem to like working up against a deadline… but as a friend kindly reminded me the other day wedding quilts can be given after the wedding. So how late do you think is too late for a wedding quilt?