A heartfelt Paper Piecing Monday

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

This week I decided to get into the Valentine spirit, despite my husband poo pooing the holiday at every turn. He strongly feels that it is a holiday that is purely about selling cards and flowers and chocolates. He feels just a little less negatively about Christmas and I ignore him then too!

So in honor the of the upcoming day of celebration…and to annoy my husband, I put together a little 3 inch love heart block…

The pattern for these darling little things can be found here….3 inch pp hearts. The pattern sheet has six of the heart patterns on it. After making my first heart I decided that one little heart was not enough for (1) annoying my husband and (2) making this a substantial Paper Piecing Monday, so I pulled some more fabric from my stash (the first block was done purely with scraps)….

and got to work making this….

Hopefully by the end of the week this will be a darling 18 inch cushion…which I may be allowed to put on our couch…

30Jan2015

Constellation crosses

Posted in Quilt patterns, Quilts by wombatquilts

In a moment of crazy at the end of last year I decided that I would not start any new projects in January or February this year. I have so many wips and unfinished quilt tops I thought I needed to do something to clear the backlog. This “resolution” saw me pulling out some old unfinished blocks this week and getting this quilt top done…

I actually started making these blocks in March of last year. I had made a 4 inch paper pieced version of this block for the PMQG medallion and then blew the pattern up to 6 1/2 inches to play with. There is a link on my original post to the free paper piecing pattern in two sizes (4 and 6 inch) in you are interested.

So this week I made a pile more blocks and this morning finally got them all wrangled into a top.

The quilt uses the wonderful Constellation range by designer Lizzy House. I love the fun bright fabrics that Lizzy makes and though I was late to discovering her fabrics, I have been hoarding and using them for a couple of years. I do not think there is a quilt I have made in the last year or so that has not had Pearl Bracelets in it somewhere.

This range is all about stars and fun Constellations, but you could easily use this pattern in any fabric range…the trick is to make sure you have a nice contrast in your blocks and that you embrace the light and dark fabrics from the range.

To really up the contrast with this top I also pulled in some solid white fabric as well as the white on white Pearl Bracelets. I also did not shy away from adding a touch of red/purple. One of the fabrics in the line had a touch of this colour and I thought I would embrace it…just a little. I used the design rule of three and added three blocks with the purple.

I just love how the quilt seems to sparkle and your eyes are forced to move around the top. Now all that is left for me to do is remove the paper and quilt this sucker up!

I am linking up today to Crazy Mom Quilts Friday Finishes.

27Jan2015

Better late than never….

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

Paper piecing Monday just did not happen yesterday. After spending 5 days celebrating Russian Christmas with friends at Hood River we got home late last night and I just could not get my act together enough to post. I blame the vodka, the lack of sleep and the rip snorting good time I had. So without further ado here is Paper Piecing Monday’s latest block…

I like the pointy light green spike behind the dark green star. I used the lightest greens for the background points so they almost fade into the sky….

I branched away from the triangle blocks this week and went with simple square components. You can find the free pattern here….Star petal I promise the PDF has a numbered pattern, unlike the one in the photograph! I once again blame the vodka!

23Jan2015

Quilting with friends

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

Wednesday I had a wonderful day quilting with some of the members of the Portland Modern Quilt Guild. We had an incredibly productive day and finished 3 quilt tops and also threw a quilt up on the long arm.

What made the day extra special was that we were working in a space that was displaying a collection of our Medallion quilts…

Once a month Modern Domestic hosts our charity sew day. We get to work in their wonderful space and use the amazing Bernina sewing machines in their work room. It is always hard for me to go back to my basic Brother machine after a day of luxury sewing on the Bernina!

So what did we get done I hear you ask….

We managed to get this floral beauty quilted on the long-arm machine.

Lots of loops and a couple of flowers were stitched into the top by a number of PMQG members. It is really fun to have a top that anyone can have a turn on, so we usually use a simple free motion technique and people can embellish if they are so inclined.

We also made a collection of wonky snowball blocks that became a sweet little quilt top…

And a couple of orphan blocks also became quilt tops. Anne made a sweet little disappearing nine patch….

And while we are talking about Charity quilts I wanted to share another quilt that was recently finished…

The blocks were orphan blocks donated by the fabulous Elsa Hart, I put the top together and finally the amazing quilting was done by Kazumi Peterson.

Kazumi quilted this fabulous pattern into ever block with my favorite bubbles pattern in the sashing. I really love how this quilt turned out and I am realising more and more how important the final quilting process is.

I know most of you already know this, but for me every time I see a quilt properly quilted I am in awe of what those top stitches bring to a project. It is spurring me to really tackle my lack of quilting skills this year.

19Jan2015

Swirling Star Paper piecing Monday

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

Today’s block is a very simple block, is really easy to make but really effective…

Just twelve easy pieces and you get a fabulous twisting pin wheel star. I can definitely see a quilt made out of a larger version of this block… The free PDF pattern for this 8 inch star can be found here…swirling star

This is block 11, if I am counting right. I need to start thinking about what I want to do with these blocks and how many I need to make. Usually 12 blocks is enough but as these are smaller blocks I feel I need more… should I make a few more or move onto something else?