A new quilting adventure – wip Wednesday

Posted in Quilt patterns, WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

After a couple of weeks of being able to do nothing but hexies I desperately wanted to start a new quilt. I do have a large number of quilts to finish but I just had to do something new to blow out the cob webs.

So last week when I was feeling better I started going through my Bloglovin feed and found two projects that I just feel in love with. First there was Cari at There’s a Thread fabulous tutorial for making a Palatina Pillow. Then I found Amy at 13 Spools interview with Faith from Fresh Lemons, which included a photo of a wonderful poinsettia mini quilt (link here). These two projects inspired me to make my own version.

Using Photoshop, I took different bits and pieces from some blocks I had scanned and played with their layout, shape, position and size. The end result was this…

Which with fabric sewn on it looks like this…

The block was designed as a 4 x 4 inch block, the size I usually work with, but for this quilt I blew it up to 7 x 7. Blowing it up was as easy as selecting “scale to page” on my printer and then trimming the block using my ruler’s 1/4 inch mark rather than the dotted lines.

For me this is the perfect block to be working on at the moment, as you actually have to plan out the quilt little. So I have pulled out my colour pencils and have been pre-marking my paper patterns, block by block. To make this pattern work how I wanted, you must have blocks that match up, hence the pre-colouring! As I am still unable to sew for long stretches and this process allows me to take breaks and go slower than usual.

When I put the blocks I have done so far up on the design wall I realised that there was another influence at work… my hexies.

I just can not seem to avoid them at the moment!

14Jun2013

Going slowly insane…

Posted in Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

First up thanks to everyone for the kind thoughts and comments. I was really touched.

I am doing good but was not warned how boring it is to recover from surgery. The first 4 to 5 days you are so tired and sore and doped up that you do not care. It is the days that follow that are really annoying me. Obviously patience is not my strong suit.

I am on day 9 of re-corporation and I am driving myself and my husband crazy. I am well enough that I am alert and functioning but not well enough to be able to bend down or sit at a sewing machine or do anything for more than an hour without dozing off. My life has become a cycle of watching old episodes of Deadliest Catch, making hexies and sleeping. Yipee!

I have been mainly sewing my hexagon flowers together. My placement is rather random – my husband keeps wanting to add a pattern to the placement but I like to just go with the flow. Here is what I have so far….

It may not look like much but I also had to do some running repairs. Some of my earlier stitches were not as small as they needed to be. I had to go back into about 4 flowers and re-stitch.

The back side of this quilt shows just how much work goes into these suckers. Lots of tiny hand stitches…

I am a little burnt out on hexagons, but they are really the only quilting I can handle at the moment. My hope is that by Sunday I will be back behind the sewing machine. Come hell or high water there will be a Paper Piecing Monday. Promise.

31May2013

Finally a proper finish

Posted in Finished Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

Today I am happy to say I finally finished a quilt – quilted, bound and labeled. It has been two weeks since I finished a quilt and I was feeling a little antsy about it all. So without further ado, here she is…

If you are a regular to the site you will have seen this quilt in various stages of production, but she is now all finished!

I must admit I have struggled today to get her photographed properly. The lighting conditions have not been at all co-operative, but fourth time is a charm.

I did straight line stitching using a magenta thread. I really did not know what colour thread to go with – white did not seem right, navy was a little too dark, green too light. The thread choice is okay but it is not quite what I wanted. Too late now right!

I backed the quilt with some IKEA fabric that I thought went well. Bright and cheery.

The quilting is quite effective on the back of the quilt at least!

I bound in solid navy. It is my go to binding and just seems to bring everything together nicely.

I am linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for Friday finishes.

Have a great weekend!

24May2013

An almost finished Friday

Posted in Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

Last night I finally finished pulling all the paper off my floral crackers quilt. 80 blocks, 79 different floral fabrics and 1/2 a ton of paper later I have this beauty.

There was finally a break in the rain this morning, so I dashed out to take this photo. Not perfect conditions but I was glad for any sort of respite from the deluge.

Enough about the weather… back to quilting. The top is made using the traditional cracker quilt block. I paper piece this top but you can find links to making the pattern on my original post here.

I used as many bright multi-coloured floral fabrics as I could find and only accidentally doubled up on one fabric. There is a lot of Kaffe Fassett in this quilt along with Amy Butler and Denyse Schmidt.

I used random black and white fabric for the background of the pattern but if I was to make this quilt again I would probably go with a low volume fabric option with more colour in it. Don’t get me wrong, I like the black and white but I think in hindsight more colour in the background would have made a different type of quilt top.

This quilt already has a home to go to. I have till the middle of June to get it finished, so it can be presented to a graduating foster kid in the Portland area. Project Linus every year makes sure kids graduating from the foster system & high school have a quilt to take with them on the next stage of their life.

But for now I am off to clean up the paper mess I have made…. it is the curse of paper piecing!

I am linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for their finished Friday… I think a finished quilt top counts right!

22May2013

A very Pink wip Wednesday

Posted in Quilt patterns, WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

This week I have been working my way through a friend’s copy of Tula Pink’s “100 Modern Quilt Blocks” . It has been a lot of fun.

I started by pulling some soft, pretty fabrics. It was the name, Tula Pink that made me want to go with this palette. I pulled soft pinks, reds and greys including a handful of solids.

Then I worked my way through some of the patterns I had flagged. One by one I selected the fabric, cut it, then sewed the block together. It was a slow, deliberate process and I loved every minute of it. I definitely do not have as much done as I would pre-cutting my fabric and working with just one pattern but this is a refreshing change of pace.

My work space is little more hectic as well, but I found a great use for my cookbook holder….