The joy of quilting with others…

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

This week I am going to showcase some of the amazing quilts that the Portland Modern Quilt Guild has made as part of its Charity Program. The PMQG has a pretty active Charity arm and once a month we meet to make quilt blocks for one of our selected causes… our January get together produced this beauty…

half log cabin quilt

During the Sew Day we made a pile of half log cabin blocks…using pink, orange, red, purple and black & white stripes. Each blocks started with a center square and we then sewed out until we reach 12 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches (or trimmed down if we got a little carried away)…

half log cabin blocks

At the end of the day we had enough blocks to make a big (70 x 70) and a small (48 x 48) quilt…

small quilt

Bright, loud and fun were the words of the day…

half log cabin quilt detail 3

The two quilts were then sent out to two of our Guild members who did a wonderful job quilting them… the small quilt has a straight line pattern that radiates out from the center of the quilt…

small half log cabin quilt detail

The back of the quilt gives you a good view of the overall pattern… I love how effective this quilting is with this block… and I extra love that I could achieve this effect with my home machine, a ruler and Frixon pen.

small quilting detail

On the large quilt each four block section has an amazing feathering pattern on it…

quilt detail

Kazumi, who quilting the large top, used a ruler set to create the wonderful motifs in each section…

half log cabin quilt detail 2

The quilting is so pretty and detailed… and totally beyond my skill level….

quilting detail

Both quilts are so bright and fun, and the light touches of black and white stop the them from being too obviously loud and garish. They will shortly go out into the world and provide some warmth, comfort and colour in some kids life. Thanks to all who donated fabric, made blocks or quilting these beauties.

18Mar2016

A special selection…

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

It has been quite a while since I have posted photos of some of the charity quilts that members of the Portland Modern Quilt Guild have made, so I hope you will indulge me as I share some of the recent projects…

trip around quilt

First up is a scrappy trip along top… the blocks and extra fabric was donated to the Guild by the wonderful Elsa and all I had to do sew the blocks together and make the back….

trip around quilt detail 3

We put this top on the long arm at one of our Charity Sew Days and a number of people had a blast quilting flowers all over it….

quilt back

And for the back of the quilt I pieced together the left over fabric and a few extra fat quarters and viola…

Bernstein bears quilt

Another donation to the Charity program was a couple of charm packs of fun Bernstein Bear fabric, which were easily turned into disappearing nine patch blocks…

Bernstein bears quilt detail

This fabric is so fun and bright not to much was need too make a fabulous kid friendly quilt…

orphan block quilt

And it would not be a Charity quilt showcase without some orphan block quilts starting with this fun number.

orphan block quilt detail

I love all the quilting on this quilt….each block has a different pattern but all the pattern use straight lines.

And last but not least is this orphan block quilt that one of our wonderful members, Juline, put together. I love Juline’s use of negative space with this quilt… she made a handful of similar blocks into a wonderful modern quilt.

I will try and get some photos of our group quilts up in the next couple of days as well, if the Portland weather permits.

20Nov2015

On a mission…

Posted in Finished Quilts, Project Linus by wombatquilts

Now that I am getting back to full health I feel like I have so much to catch up on…and first thing on my To Do list is to clear some of my WIPs out of the house. The main impetuous for the clear out is the fact that you can not currently access our spare bedroom because of the pile of batting, quilts and fabric…our spare bedroom is Charity Quilt central! I have a wonderfully patient and understanding husband who is somewhat blind to fabric piles and quilting mess, but even he has started commenting.

So as we head to Thanksgiving I will be sharing mine and PMQG’s most recent quilt finishes before they head out to their respective charities. To start proceedings I give you this wonderful little quilt…

This quilt was made, along with a larger version, at one of the Portland Modern Quilt Guild Charity Sew days. This was a fun day where I bought a huge box of blue scraps, a smattering of white and grey scraps and we all made log cabins.

Somewhere in the process a touch of orange was added, at the insistence of one of our amazing Guild Members Juline, and viola you have magic.

The orange really makes the quilt sing. All the improv log cabin blocks are trimmed to 12 inches finished and this four by four version of the quilt is headed to Project Linus. The larger version of this quilt (six by seven blocks) is currently out with one of our talented long-armers.

When pulling blocks for this smaller version of the quilt I made sure to get some great novelty prints in the mix.

This was such a fun and easy project to do with the group, as once again there is no right or wrong, just playing with colour. The quilt is backed with a darling Laura Ashley fabric that seemed appropriate and bound with some navy batik fabric which was kindly donated to the Guild by Hoffman fabrics.

quilt back

Thanksgiving does seem like the perfect time to share some of the amazing quilts that our Guild has made to help our community. I am so very thankful to everyone who helps out with this program.

26May2015

A flurry of butterflies….

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday, Quilt patterns by wombatquilts

Yesterday was a public holiday here in the US and I fully embraced the good weather and took the day off…. so no paper piecing Monday this week. Instead I wanted to share one of the paper piecing projects I have been working on for the last week or so…

I have been making butterfly blocks using Lizzy House fabric and tone-on-tone white scraps. My obsession with making these blocks took seed when Lizzy’s new fabric line, Natural Histories came out and included this wonderful print…I had purchased a fabulous butterfly pattern a year or so ago from Juliet at Tartan Kiwi so I went to work making blocks. The pattern, if you are interested, is only $2.50 and can be bought HERE.

The pattern is for a 5 inch butterfly and it takes four parts to make one block….

The more of these I have made the quicker the process has become. There are some small bits to the pattern but nothing to complex… and I love the end result.

For my butterfly collection I also enlarged the pattern a little. The yellow butterfly above is the 5 inch block and the green butterfly is what I got when I enlarged the pattern to take up the whole of a 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper.

My finished butterfly collection will have both block sizes and a fun array of colours. I am using just Lizzy House fabric and trying not to repeat any fabric…and I love how they all look.

10Apr2015

Cross Stitch Sparkle quilt

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

This week I managed to finish up another quilt… my Cross Stitch Sparkle quilt finally got quilted and bound….it only took 30 weeks and a friggin ton of half square triangles!

This quilt started last year when I agreed to test a quilt pattern for Sara at Knotty Gnome. I love to challenge myself and I had never done anything with half square triangles before so I jumped in feet first. Each block is 18 inches square and I thought I could make a little baby quilt. My original top finish was four blocks by four blocks.

But…in a moment of crazy a month or so ago… I thought I would make the quilt bigger and added an additional 5 blocks! I had just cut a whole pile of 4 inch solid squares so I thought why not use some of them.

Actually I love this size quilt…I think you really get a great sense of the pattern with the extra blocks added.

I used so many different warm and cool solids in this quilt. I know I have tons of Kona and Michael Miller Cotton Couture as well as Moda and a sprinkling of American Made in there. Basically any appropriate solids I had in my scrap bin went into this thing.

I quilted the top using straight lines on my home machine. For some reason I did not want to quilt it too densely and straight lines echoing the grey center square seemed to be the thing to do.