Christmas has invaded…

Posted in Other fun stuff by wombatquilts

I have spent the last couple of weeks fending off the coming Christmas invasion but I finally had to surrender last week and just embrace the season. What this means is that there has been copious amounts of Christmas cooking….

which resulted in a staggering number of Christmas cookies (aka biscuits) which we delivered around town yesterday….

Operation Cookie drop 2013 was much more successful than 2012’s operation (which ended abruptly after only 3 hours). This year we managed to deliver to 16 different households in two States – it took us 6 1/2 hours, over a 1/3 tank of petrol (gas), 4 Christmas albums and quite a bit of caffeine.

As we staggered home at 8.30pm last night we both agreed that we needed to re-think some of the aspects of this tradition. We both agreed that next year we need to have more Christmas themed outfits for our delivery, with my husband enthusiastically declaring “great you can quilt me an elf outfit”.

So now that I have surrendered completely to the holiday spirit I am going to take this week off to enjoy the company of my darling husband, our fabulous friends and family. I am going to watch “Love Actually” for the third time this week, try to sleep in a little, try not to eat too much and see how long I can go without quilting something. I will be back next Monday, sugared up and ready to go.

So until then…from our house to your house…. Merry Christmas…Happy Holidays… Happy Hanukkah…Seasons Greetings.

20Dec2013

It took awhile…

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

but I finally got to meet in person the quilt that the Portland Modern Quilt Guild did as part of our Michael Miller Neon challenge. I had heard rumors about the quilt and seen a small photo of it on the Michael Miller site but that was it, until last week.

My interest in this quilt is purely selfish… you see my challenge block had ended up on the quilt. Earlier in the year I took the lovely pack of Neon fabric, chose a paper piecing pattern and made this beauty…

The various blocks were all collected up at our MQG meeting and it was not till many many months later I saw that they had been turned into this…

So modern. So bright. So fun.

Yep my star had joined a number of other beautiful blocks, including my friend Lisa’s gorgeous improv block to become this quilt.

I really love how all the random blocks are made to work with this unique layout. Amber Wilson, a PMQG member did an amazing job piecing the top and Nancy Stoval’s quilting is just perfect, as always.

This quilt has been traveling a bit. It was featured at the Michael Miller booth at Quilt Market in May and then was shown at the Sisters Outdoor show in summer.

I am so very proud of my little block and it’ place on this beautiful quilt.

ps. Please excuse the photos… I had to grab photos when I could but I had to share…I just had to.

18Dec2013

The week in fabric…

Posted in Other fun stuff by wombatquilts

This week my design wall has been very busy. I have been pulling projects up and down all week, working on a number of things but not quite finishing any of them. First up I did more of my Tula Pink 100 Modern Quilt Blocks…

I have been having a great time playing with novelty fabrics as I know that this is a quilt destined for a little girl. In other words you can not have too much pink or too many mermaids.

I am now 28 blocks in… I know I am not going to make all 100 for this quilt, but I do have a few more to go.

The other project I started playing with this week is my Scrapbeelicious quilt blocks. I have now got almost all my Bee blocks in and have started working on how I want to lay them out. I received the most amazing blocks from my fellow Bee members and I am so excited to be working on this quilt. Here is a sneak peek of what I have up on my wall at the moment…

I am going to make a few connecting blocks and really look at how to use negative space to give the blocks room to breath. This is going to be fun.

16Dec2013

Starry night goes small…

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

I struggled this week to find some paper pieced patterns that would give me small (think 4 inches) but interesting stars. My quilt definitely needs some size variety and I am not insane enough to shrink down one of the more complex patterns to a tiny size…even I have limits. After a little bit of searching I found a version of this star….

The original pattern is from A Little Bit of Biased’s Paper Piecing Tutorial. I adapted the pattern a little to add a bit more complexity and ended up with this..

The shape of this star is so different from my other stars and it has a lovely wonky feel. As the block was so simple, I of course had to make two.

What a difference from last week…my complex 100 piece snowflake is followed by a simple 13 piece tiny star. What will next week bring?

13Dec2013

Block Rock’n Sampler quilt

Posted in Finished Quilts, Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

After a year of Paper Piecing Monday I have finally finished a quilt from my Monday blocks. I am very proud to present my Block Rock’n sampler quilt top.

All these blocks are from Julie at 627Handwork’s fabulous free Block Rock’n pattern collection. There are only two blocks from her collection missing from this quilt – my Icky Thump block became part of the beautiful Icicle quilt and Julie’s Floyd block which I have not made yet.

Block rockn quilt detail

For the record my favourite block is this beauty….

For the quilting of this lovely , I went with diagonal lines, which seemed appropriate with the off center block placement I went with.

For the backing I found some fabulously outrageous IKEA fabric in my stash which was just perfect. The photo does not do these neon lips justice.

The final touch was some solid Kona grey binding, which was attached using the sewing machine. I figured that this quilt might get a lot of love (and stains) and wanted it to be as durable as possible. Machine binding, though not as pretty as hand binding, in my opinion, does add some sturdiness.