Finally Neoned out… for now

I am proud to present the last block of my Neon Pink quilt…

This pattern was fun to make and I think reflects a couple of the other blocks already in the quilt. You can find a free copy of the pattern I designed here…WQ Atomic Star block.

So now all of the neon blocks are done and all that is left to do is the maths for the sashing – made a little complex because the blocks finished up at 12 1/2 inches and 11 inches. In the beginning when I decided to make some friends for the two 11 inch PMQG orphan blocks I found, I did not realise I was making the maths harder. Augh….

I am sure it will be worth it in the end but for now I have my calculator and some graph paper out to see how to make this sucker work. Wish me luck!

19Mar2014

Lots of X’s

Posted in Quilt patterns by wombatquilts

This week my quilting life has been full of just one block – a paper pieced X block of varying sizes.

I made the original block pattern, a 4 inch x 4 inch block, for the next border on the PMQG medallion quilt.

I used the PMQG Me dallion Border paper piecing pattern to make the border for the group medallion which is taking full advantage of the fabulous Botanics range by Carolyn Friedlander.

Don’t you just love the center Dresden flower – my clever fellow PMQG officer, Kelly of Blue Bird Sews made it.

After finishing the first 24 X blocks for the Guild Medallion I turned around and did another 48 X blocks to make the border on my Medallion….

Yep you read right… I had to make two lots of cross blocks to get my border done, because I did not measure my paper piecing pattern before I started sewing. My printer had “scaled to fit” my first set of block so they were just slightly smaller than 4 inches. Lesson for the day: always measure your printed pattern before you start work.

For some unknown reason I then thought “wow wouldn’t be fun to try a larger cross with some Lizzy House fabrics” and in a moment of insanity started making these blocks…

I was at least smart enough to blow the pattern up to 6 x 6 inches and I am liking how this quilt is starting to look. You can find the pattern for the larger crosses here… Cross block pattern.

Believe it or not I am contemplating adding some smaller 4 x 4 blocks to my Constellation quilt to bring a nice variety to the top. If I do not get too sick of these blocks, I will have a wip update in a couple of weeks.

17Mar2014

Nearly there…

Posted in neon quilt blocks, Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

After today I am just one block away from having my Neon pink quilt ready to put together… so without further ado here is my penultimate pink neon crazy…

The pattern is a free one that comes with the EQ system, so I need to check copyright and see if I can share it with you. If I can, I will put it one the paper piecing pattern page in the coming week.

I am definitely going to be remaking this block, because it would be AWESOME done scrappy. I have a cunning plan for the block already…

So next week I will post the last neon block for this quilt, but do not despair, as there is more neon in my future. I have one other orphan Neon quilt to put together for the Portland Modern Quilt Guild…. you have been warned.

12Mar2014

Tackling some challenging blocks

Posted in Quilt patterns, WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

Things came to a crunch this week with some very over due Bee blocks that could no longer be ignored, no matter how hard I tried.

One of the things I love about doing quilting Bees is that you are challenged, every month, to make different blocks and for me it is a good way to try new, non paper piecing stuff. This month’s challenges included…

This block is 12 1/2 inches square and was requested as part of the ScrapBeelicious Bee. When I first looked at the pattern I was a little overwhelmed, but I cut the squares as I was cutting fabric for another quilt and chain piecing made the process less daunting.

The pattern, Star Value by Happy Quilting, is perfect for a Bee, because you do not want to be making a whole quilt of these suckers. The free tutorial also has the calculations to make the block in different sizes from 12 inches up to 28 inches.

Surprisingly, I had a much more harrowing experience making these Bee blocks…

The ScrapBeelicious January block (yes yes I am very very late with this one) challenged us to make the Ann Marie Horner’s Feather Blocks…

For some reason these were the blocks I had to unpick the most. The center grey spine of the feather was too short and I struggled with getting the pattern pieces to align. In the end I just wanted to make a paper piecing pattern to make this sucker… it would have been so much easier!

The last lot of Bee blocks for this week were a simple and fun….

My February do.Good.Stitches Block was the Starflower block by Ellison Lane. This block was so easy and the pattern makes two blocks at a time… genius!

So I have now done my quota of half square triangles (HST) for the month. For the rest of the month I am only tackling those suckers via paper piecing.

10Mar2014

Miniture Quilts Paper Piecing Monday

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

I am back… sorry about the radio silence last week… I was kind of forced to take a little break but we are now back on-line and ready to go… starting with Paper Piecing Monday miniature style.

The Portland Modern Quilt Guild is currently taking part in some miniature quilt challenges, so I just had to give it a try. Because of the size of the quilt blocks usually used in these quilts, precision is incredibly important. Even the slimmest of miscalculations can cause big issues when you are working at such a small scale, unless of course, you work with a paper piecing pattern.

So I decided to use a simple 3 inch log cabin block for my Metallic Challenge mini quilt…

Of course I had to use one of my fave fabrics, Michael Miller’s Mirror Ball. It was just perfect for this challenge and worked well with the small scale block.

You can find the paper piecing pattern I used here…. miniature log cabin pattern. The blocks came together really quickly and my final quilt is 15 inches by 15 inches square and now all I have to do is work out how I want to back and quilt it.