A little quilt showcase

I thought I would take the opportunity to share with the wider world some of the amazing Charity Quilts that the Portland Modern Quilting Guild has produced this month. For those of you who follow me, you know that I am a pretty active charity quilter and I organize our guild’s charity sewing. I am constantly amazed at the generosity and talent of our guild when it comes to our program….

Some Guild members donate orphan blocks that we make up into quilts. Our wonderful Guild president this year, Elsa, donated the blocks that made this beauty….

Elsa donated ten blocks which were sewn into a top by me, and then quilted by Coleen of The Quilted Thistle. Photos do not do Coleen’s quilting justice, it is beautiful.

Oh and did I mention the little hedgehog?

I used the tenth donated block in the back of the quilt…

Other guild members donate fully completed quilt tops to us… Sam Hunter of Hunter Design Studio donated the top and back for this beautiful quilt….

and another guild member Gail Weiss free motioned quilted all over it, to great effect…

One or two of the quilts we donate each month start life at our Charity Sew Day, which are held at our local quilt store Modern Domestic. Once a month we invade MD’s class room space and whip up blocks which in turn are made into quilts…

I love this improv rainbow quilt top. All the blocks were made at the Charity Sew Day in January by guild members including Mary Ann, Kim, Debbie, Dawn, Michelle, and Elsa. The top was then quilted by the fabulous Dawn Graf-Thiessen, another one of the Guild’s talented long armers.

The fabric for these blocks is from scraps that were also donated to the Charity Sew program. When I receive a donation of scraps I sort them into colours (each colour has its own shoe box). What is left over is put into a catch-all box of multi coloured scraps…

..and some of those scraps were used to make blocks for this bright improv quilt. In November last year I asked Guild members to make a 12 inch square bright improv block, if they wanted, which would then be used in a Charity quilt. This top was the end result…

Bright loud and fun this quilt is definitely going to make some kid very happy… The top was quilted by last years Guild president, MaryAnn. She did a great job free motion quilting on her home machine.

The last quilt I want to share is a simple quiet baby quilt…

This top was made during a Charity Sew Day by guild member Anne. She took some precut squares that had been donated to the program and made a disappearing nine patch block. On Sew days I always pack some precut or orphan blocks so that people who do not necessarily want to make the block of the month can play.

Another guild member, Emily, free motioned this darling pattern all over the quilt using her home machine. The sweet pattern works so well on this low volume quilt.

I would like the thank all the PMQG guild members who every month help our charity program in ways big and small…either by donating fabric or blocks or their time and talent. We could not do it without you. Thank you.

2Mar2015

Paper Piecing Monday…

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

Another Monday another paper piecing pattern… I am eventually going to run out of ideas I am sure, but until then I give you…

The Sunny Star, another 8 inch block. This is a cute one and was pretty easy to put together (no really strange angles) and takes just 40 pieces of fabric.

You can find free paper piecing pattern, in PDF form, here…Sunny star pattern.

25Feb2015

New York Beauties

Posted in Colour Play, Quilt patterns by wombatquilts

A couple of weeks ago, at one of our Guild Sew Days I got an amazing burst of creative energy. It all started with the fabulous Bill Volkening and his amazing collection of vintage New York Beauty quilts. Bill is a quilt collector extraordinaire and a collection of his 1970’s quilt hung at QuiltCon last week.

Anyway Bill was showing some of us the roughs for a new book he has done which highlights his amazing collection of New York Beauty quilts from the 1850’s through to modern. I had never seen such an awe inspiring collection of quilts and I was immediately drawn to the wonderful patterns that were used to make them. If you are interested in seeing what I am talking about Bill has a fun slide show of 30 of his New York beauties up on line HERE.

Having just conquered my fear of curved piecing I thought I had to give this block a go, just to see if I could do it. The second part of the inspiration came about 20 minutes later when a friend from PMQG gave me the most amazing gift… a tin of Mirror Ball fat quarters. It seems Tracey had bought the tin years ago, before I had discovered the magic of Mirror Ball and not used it…she had seen my love of Mirror Ball first hand at the PMQG retreat (I may have drooled over her fabric) and decided to gift me her tin of magic. I was at first speechless and a little teary. It was such a generous gift and I do LOVE Mirror Ball. Anyway a long story short while I was petting my new fabric I stumbled across this colour scheme…

…and my new project/obsession was born. So this week I have been making New York Beauty blocks…

…lots of New York Beauty blocks.,..

I found some paper piecing patterns for blocks in my EQ7 program and I have been playing…

There has been lots of unpicking and learning but I am having fun. I am not sure what final layout will be but for now I am just enjoying the fun of making these blocks. Each one is different…each one is unique…each one has sparkle in it.

I am linking up with Lee and Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.

23Feb2015

Paper piecing star overload

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

So here is my fourteenth green star block… and I can not believe that there are so many already…

As promised it is more complex than last weeks with 32 pieces but still less than some of my bigger star blocks!

The free PDF for this star can be found here…Lonely Star Pattern. If I was to make this star again I think I would alternate the light and dark greens more, as you would in a traditional Lone Star quilt.

Oh and as promised here is a shot of most of the stars so far (12 out of the 14)…

I am still not sure what I am going to do with them all but a plan is brewing…. I was really inspired by the QuiltCon quilts I have seen on Instagram…so there will be negative space and an off grid layout I think!

20Feb2015

Cushion addicton…

Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilts by wombatquilts

I have recently become slightly obsessed with quilted cushions. It all began when I started making class sample for Modern Domestic (my local quilt shop)…and it has not stopped yet.

After making my tiny Economy block mini quilt I wanted to do a bigger version of the block, just for fun. Using a 5 inch block I made this easy cushion in no time…

I used more of my Cotton and Steel stash and just loved fussy cutting the little bunnies in particular…they are so darling. What I love about the Economy block is it is so easy to pick three colours – with this pillow it was pink, navy and yellow… and just go.

Your colourway guides your fabric choices as you rummage through your scraps and stash. As I was pulling fabric I made sure I had a variety of tones – lights and darks in the three colours. The rest is as easy…make the blocks and sew them together. Because you have a coherent colour scheme you can lay out the blocks randomly and get beautiful results.

The cushion top took twenty 5 inch blocks or if you are more adventurous you can do a baby quilt with just sixty three (63) blocks..

This cushion gave me my first opportunity to test out the walking foot on the Bernina 550… and oh what fun it was…

It was so easy to attach the foot (unlike my old machine which involved screw drivers and painters tape!) and the sewing was a breeze. I can not wait to try a bigger quilt with this foot. Hopefully next week I will have quilt done and dusted!