Appleville Quilt finished

Posted in Finished Quilts, Project Linus by wombatquilts

I managed to finish my Appleville quilt this week… another Project Linus finish for October. I started this quilt a week or so ago and it was a real challenge for me.

I was using a “cheater” panel for the first time and really wanted to highlight each of the individual illustrations somehow. Once I had worked out my colour scheme and pulled some appropriate supporting fabric from my stash, the individual blocks came together easily. My original post on the quilt was full of optimism. Then the struggle began for me with how to lay them out.

I had never worked with this much white/negative space before. My design wall was a blessing as I moved the blocks around trying to find a flow I liked. Once I had a layout I was happy with the real hard work began. It was like doing a jigsaw puzzle piecing in the white Kona cotton. The top part of the quilt took me ages to put together but by the bottom section I was an old pro. There are even some Y seams in this sucker (another first for me). I would love to hear from anyone who has advice, tricks or tips on doing this kind of piecing. I know I have a lot to learn.

With the top all pieced I now had to fill all that negative space with quilting First off I tried some hand quilting in red thread – I liked it but my wrist is not healed enough to handle that much hand quilting at the moment…. so unpicking number one.

Then I quilted lines inside the blocks and tried a little free motion pebbles in the white space. I did not like it, and again my wrist was not up to that much pushing and pulling of fabric through the machine… unpicking number 2. In the end it was straight lines and boxes.

It does the job, but is not as beautiful as I would have liked. I am still coming to terms with my quilting shortfalls (which is my actual quilting) and my current physical limitations (my darn left wrist). I am chomping at the bit to do some proper free-motion quilting to build up my skills.

For the back of the quilt I used my favorite printed panel and made it the focal point.

I think it is one of the cutest quilt backs I have done. And it is all because of this little print.

Appleville Quilt Details:

Style: Modern free form

Fabric: Appleville by Robert Kaufman & Kona White

Finished quilt size: 47″ x 57″

23Oct2013

Playing with Urban Chickens

Posted in Other fun stuff, WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

To celebrate this years Pacific North West MQG Meet up our fearless leader, Michelle Freedman designed a fun modern block to celebrate… the Urban Chicken. During the Meet Up we did a charity sew day where chickens ran wild.

This week I decided to dust off the pattern card and make my own Urban Chicken quilt… below is my plagiarized, annotated and updated version of Michelle’s original pattern.

For each block you need:

1. Four (4) different shades of the same colour – I decided to stick to green, blue & yellow

2. White or off white fabric – I pulled all my scrap bag of solid whites out.

Then it is off to work making a block….

1. Cut one 3 ½ inches x 14 ½ inches strip of each of your four coloured fabric. I added an extra 1/2 inch to the strips from the original pattern to allow for some wiggle room (ie. mistakes).

2. From these strips cut one 3 ½ inches x 3 ½ inches and set aside these squares.

3. Sew the four 10 ½ inch strips together using 1/4 inch seam allowance. Press the seams to one side in the same direction.

.4. Sew the long ends together to form a tube… these next steps are the same as you would do for a Trip Around quilt.

5. Subcut the tube into three 3 ½ inch wide units… this is where the excess 1/2 inch of fabric on the strips comes in handy for me.

5. Carefully use the seam ripper to open each unit at a different place. Arrange the three rows as you like, nesting the seam allows and sew together. Press the seams open or to alternating sides.

Then to make the chickens….

1. Using your white scraps or some generously cut white strips (no smaller than 2 ½ wide) and the four coloured squares you had set aside make some wonky triangles.

2. Place the white fabric strip over the 3 ½ x 3 ½ inch square right sides together – angling the white fabric from just past center of the square to one corner of the square. Repeat on the other side. Do this for all four coloured squares.

3. Press seams on your chicken unit and square it up to the original 3 ½” x 3 ½” size. When trimming make sure that the top of the triangle has a ¼ inch seam of white. This will allow you triangles to come to a clean point (learnt this one the hard way).

4. Arrange your chickens as you like and sew them together to form the fourth strip of the block.

You can stitch your chickens to either side of your solid blocks.

5. Make sure you square off your completed block ensuring it measures 12½”” by 12½”.

To add some variation to your Urban Chickiens, Michelle suggests doing some blocks up without the chickens… that is blocks of just 4 x 4 coloured squares.

I am now off to add some more chickens to my coup. I am really having fun with this quilt and can not wait to have a finished quilt top to show.

18Oct2013

Floral Crackers Fabulous Finish

Posted in Finished Quilts, Project Linus, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

I was so excited last night when I took deliver of my finished Floral Cracker’s quilt. The fabulous Rachel from 2nd Avenue Studios had used her amazing long arm/free motion quilting skills to complete this project for me.

I meet Rachel through the Portland Modern Quilting Guild and fell in love with her quilts. She does the most amazing wonky scrappy creative quilts. I was a huge fan and when she offered to quilt Floral Crackers for me I was beyond excited. Rachel also makes a lot of charity quilts and also does long arming quilting of charity quilts for the Guild. Basically she is a rock star.

I made the blocks for this quilt months ago using my black and white stash and lots of crazy floral fabrics. i raided my Kaffe Fassett stash, my Amy Butler stash as well as my friend Lisa’s stash. You can find my original post about the block, along with pattern links on how to make it here.

Rachel used a wonderful free motion flower pattern for the quilting. The shape is very “Kaffe” and mirrors several of the fabrics in the quilt.

I struggled to get decent pictures that do the quilt and quilting justice. Why do photos never capture the true beauty of a quilt?

To back the quilt, Rachel went with a gorgeous light orange dot solid. It is the perfect simple accompaniment to the crazy busy front.

Rachel also kindly did the binding for me on this quilt with her new Bernina binding magic thingy…. and I love it almost as much as I love the quilting. As a nod to me she used Kaffe Fassett’s “Aboriginal Dot” fabric.

I know it is kind of cheating but I am counting this as one of my October Project Linus quilts… I did make the top!

FLORAL CRACKER DETAILS:

Technique: Paper Piecing

Finished Block size: 7 inches

Quilt size: 56″ x 70″

16Oct2013

Some Appleville fun

Posted in WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

This week I found in my stash a yard of fabric I bought a year or so ago because I fell in love the artwork on it. It from Suzy Ultman’s “Appleville” range for Robert Kaufman.

I often buy fun printed fabric because I love it, but do not really know what I am going to do with it. I struggled a lot with this fabric in particular because it is blocks of different prints, not an overall pattern. I know I could have cheated and just used it as part of a backing fabric, but that would not show the fun prints off to their best advantage.

So this week to challenge myself, I pulled the fabric out of my stash, determined to make a quilt out of it. I cut the individual printed sections of the fabric out and went to work.

I grabbed some Kona white, some graphic bright prints and started playing.

As I finish a block it goes up on the design wall with the others.

Slowly but surely a quilt top is starting to emerge.

The blocks are all different shapes and sizes so the layout will be free form.

And there will be a lot of white used as the background fabric.

But in the end I hope to have a fun quilt top finished, quilted and bound for Friday.

Wish me luck…

11Oct2013

Rainbow I Spy Quilt done and dusted

Posted in Finished Quilts, Project Linus, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

Week two of October and I have another quilt finished despite some walking foot hiccups and a Briar Rose obsession. This week’s Project Linus finish is a little bit of a cheat – I pulled an old unfinished top out of the cupboard and quilted it up. But it is still a finish and still counts… right?

I made the top for this quilt about 3 years ago and finishing it up was an interesting exercise which showed me how much my piecing has improved. All over this quilt there are seams that just do not align…

A simple square quilt and my edges are squiffy. I am a little embarrassed but pleased to say that I have got better over the years. Plus the small mistakes here and there do not detract from the fun of this quilt.

The colours are bright and the fabric is varied. There is so much to see in this quilt, it is going to make for a wicked game or two of “I Spy”. And it is was so easy to put together, lots of 4 1/2 inch blocks in a graduating colour scale.

The quilting is simple… more straight lines. The backing is also simple, another IKEA fabric (part of a 100% cotton duvet cover).

All finished off with some purple binding.

I know this binding is a little crazy but I was out of solid navy fabric, which is my usual go to binding for a rainbow quilt. But now I have excuse to go shopping. YIPPEE!