Tricky Triangles finally finished

I am very very very pleased to say that my pink and green triangle quilt is finally all done. I have procrastinated with this quilt in new and exciting ways over the last 6+ months… but she is now completed and I can move on with the rest of my life.

I must admit, in the spirit of full disclosure, that I had planned for this quilt to be bigger than what she ended up as, but I got to the point where I had had enough and just went with the blocks I had made. Her finished dimensions are 45 inches x 50 inches which is a smallish kids quilt.

I first posted this block way back in April… I had been given a small scrap pile of olive green fabric and wanted to do something with it. Hot pink fabric was chosen to go with the olive and a triangle paper pieced pattern from the “Modern Blocks” book was chosen. I was so optimistic with that first post I titled it “Triangle Love”.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, when I decided to bite the bullet and finish this sucker… but now I was referring to it as “Triangle Trauma“. Oh what a difference time makes….

Now all is said and done I am really happy with how this quilt turned out…but will not be jumping into another triangle quilt for a while! For the backing of the quilt I used a piece of Densye Schmidt which worked perfectly with the quilt top.

For the quilting I selected a random triangle, quilted around it and then radiated the quilting out from there. It is straight line quilting but with a twist. I went with pink thread of course, because you can never get enough pink in my opinion!

I nearly went with pink binding but opted for a Kona olive green instead – I think it made the pink pop a little more.

So now that I have finished a quilt, I am now, under Ashley’s mum’s rules, allowed to start another one. I have a pattern picked out and fabric pulled… stay tuned.

Quilt Details:

Technique: Modern scrap

Block: Paper pieced triangle pattern from “Modern Blocks”

Finished size: 45″ x 50″

15Nov2013

A mini finished Friday

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

This week I finished up my two doll quilts for the Oregon Ballet Theater fundraiser that the Portland Modern Quilt Guild organized.. and broke my digital SLR. So for today’s post you get the joy of seeing my doll quilts through the lens of my iPhone. I apologize in advance…

For both quilts I used my stash of 3 inch squares but backed and quilted each one differently. For the challenge we were give some minky plush fabric, which I used for backing this yellow and pink quilt. It is lovely and soft but a bugger to quilt. I tried doing some free motion on this quilt but the stretch of the backing fabric made it impossible. So I unpicked the mess and went with my trusty straight lines.

For my second quilt I used a standard cotton fabric backing and did my first attempt at free motion quilting. I pebbled this sucker to within an inch of its life. I really liked the flow of doing pebbles but I find the idea of doing a whole quilt this way daunting. I think I have found my next challenge.

The back of this quilt is so much fun… because it is for a Ballet fundraiser I had to use this old fabric from my stash…

Yep those are pigs in tutus. This is the photo where I really wish my camera was working so you could really see the joy that is ballet dancing pigs.

I am borrowing a friends Digital SLR while mine is being fixed, so I promise this is the only post with dodgy photos.

8Nov2013

Urban Chicken Fun

Posted in Quilt patterns, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

This week I manged to finish my first Urban Chicken quilt top…. I am so excited. I love this modern easy fun pattern.

The Urban Chicken block was designed for the Portland Modern Quilt Guild meetup by Michelle Freedman. You can find my original post and tutorial on making the block here.

When laying the quilt top out I had great fun making the chickens run all around… there really is a sense of silly to this quilt block that I love.

It is also a very forgiving block – wonky triangles, lots of scraps and bold bright colours. You can get away with a few squiffy seams if need be.

This is Urban Chicken number 1 for me. I have another one following close behind in warmer colours, as I set this pattern for my Do.good.stitches bee this month. You have been warned!

6Nov2013

Triangle Trauma – wip Wednesday

Posted in Scrap quilts, WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

I was spurred this week to pull out an old work in progress by Ashley at Wasn’t Quilt in A Day. Her Mum told her that she could not start a new quilt until she had finished one of the ones she had already started. I took this sound advice and dusted off these blocks from the beginning of the year….

This quilt has been sitting in the cupboard because I am a little scared of triangles. This is only the second time I have worked with triangle-shaped blocks and I must admit I am not enjoying the process. You really need to be precise with your points and I have done soooo much unpicking. To help with the precision i am using a paper piecing pattern.

Emboldened by the challenge to finish this top, I pulled all the blocks I had made out and pinned them up on my design wall, using some solid fabric pink and olive triangles to break up the pattern a little.

There was then a flurry of activity to make the extra blocks I needed to make the quilt a usable size (14 blocks wide by 8 rows long).
My sewing machine was awash with strings of pink and olive fabric.

By mid afternoon I was happy with how things were looking and started sewing some of the rows of blocks together. I find this is the point where you really start to see how the finished quilt is going to look.

Last night there was a lot of unpicking….I am trying to be as precise as my patience will let me. Row by row I am going to get this sucker done.

This morning I sewed two of the rows together to check my alignment and to see how the colours and pattern are working. They are a little off in places but with this pattern it you have to look really hard to notice.

I am determined to have this top pieced by the end of today… if only so I can start something new. That is Ashley’s mum’s rule and I am going to try to quilt by it. One finished before another started. I can do this… I think!

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.