Starry Night Part 2 – Paper Piecing Monday

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

After some of the discussions about the complexity (or not) of last week’s block, I decided to do a really simple block this week.

This block, which measures only 8″ x 8″, was made using a free paper piecing pattern by Moira McSpadden at The Quilted Snail. I thought my Starry Night quilt would work best if I vary the size of some of the blocks – my usual Paper Piecing Monday size is 12″ x 12″. This block only uses a mere 18 pieces of fabric and is really quick and easy to make.

It is so easy to make I made two…

If I am honest I made this block first but was not completely happy with it so made the other version.

1Nov2013

Briar Rose Quilt Top finished

Posted in Quilts by wombatquilts

I managed to finish up my Briar Rose Quilt top this week… and I am loving how it came together.

It really helps that I am using Heather Ross’s marvelous fabric line, Briar Rose and a great block pattern, Labyrinth by Red Pepper Quilts. If you want to read more about the block and the start of this quilt you can check out my original post.

The block is traditionally pieced, there was not a piece of paper in sight. My seams are a little squiffy in places but the pattern is so easy to follow and so forgiving it did not take me long to whip this top up.

It was an interesting process for me using the whole line of fabric and not my usual scraps. If I “blocked” myself into a colour/pattern corner I had very limited choices to get myself out (usually I just add another fabric from my stash!). I wanted to use all the fabrics in the line as equally as possible, but also wanted to get the subtle hint of a light block/dark block pattern in the top. I found myself fudging the last couple of blocks to make this work.

I really had to be careful not to use the strawberry fabrics too much. They are my favorite of this collection and I found myself wanting to put them in every block.

And at the end of this process I have enough scraps left to play some more with the Briar Rose line. Yipee!

30Oct2013

Simple quilts – an ongoing work in progress

Posted in Other fun stuff by wombatquilts

Any of you that have been following my blog for a little while or anyone who has plowed through my site will know that I am pretty prolific in my quilt creation. I am constantly trying new patterns or new colour combinations. I make a lot of quilts. In the last 6 months or so I have got into the habit of cutting 3 inch squares from any of the scraps left over from my current project.

As I am cutting fabric for a new quilt, I will make sure that any scraps that are big enough get cut into a 3 x 3 inch square and put into a shoe box set aside for them. It has become a habit that means my scrap pile is a little more manageable and I have a ready supply of 3 inch squares for projects.

What can you do with a pile of 3 inch squares you may be asking… so far I have made:

1. Granny Square blocks

2. Doll quilts… that are currently in need of quilting!

3. Graduating colour quilts – Sunburnt country is made up of 3 inch squares

4. Paper bag quilts – this quilt top is being made with a bag of white scraps and bag of pastel scraps. I chain pieced white and pastel squares together, then sewed them into strings of 14 blocks long. When finished this will be a very easy, but cute baby quilt.

I have used the same paper bag process to make a number of fun quilts including my niece Zoe’s quilt.

Up next I really want to make a scrap vomit quilt with all my 3 inch squares. A total random hodge podge of fabrics sewn together to make something ugly beautiful. Sounds like fun!

28Oct2013

Starry Night Paper Piecing Monday

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

First of all I have to explain, for those of you that do not know me, I have the attention span of a gnat. I get bored easily and always have more ideas than I have time. With this revelation in mind I hope you will forgive me for putting aside my pastel paper piecing blocks and starting a new project… Starry Night.

I had the idea for this series of blocks the other day while watching an episode of “Face Off” and after seeing Quilts of a Feathers fabulous WIP Tardis quilt, and just had to run with it. Then I discovered that Quilting on the Square had added a six more free blocks to it’s Compass collection and it seemed like Kismet. I promptly picked the Rolling Compass block pattern (block3countryregister) and went to work.

Another fairly simple star pattern with just 40 pieces, but once again the scraps make it look more complex than it is. I think this is going to be a fun quilt to make.

ps. last night my husband did a very technical spreadsheet thingy and choose a winner of Give Away. Congrats to Melintheattic. A bundle of fun goodies will be winging their way to you soon. And thanks to everyone for the kind comments left on the site… made me feel all mushy.

27Oct2013

Bloggers Quilt Festival

Posted in Other fun stuff by wombatquilts

I have decided to enter a quilt in the Bloggers Quilt Festival this quarter – my Sunburnt Country which I am submitting to the Baby Quilts section of the Festival.

Sunburnt country

I made this quilt for an Aussie family friend whose great-grandchild would be growing up in the USA. She wanted a quilt that would be a little bit of Australia in North Carolina. The main inspiration for this quilt was a famous old Australian Poem “My Country”, whose most quoted stanza is:

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!

The quilt is made up of 3 inch squares with lots of novelty prints thrown in to keep a child’s interest. You can find more about the quilt and my process on my original post about the project.

The quilt is then backed with some a beautiful Australian print by May Gibbs – a famous Australian illustrator whose Snuggle Pot & Cuddle Pie book series has been a charming Australian children since 1918.