A fabulous little Bee Block

Posted in Quilt patterns, Quilts by wombatquilts

It has been a while since I posted any of the Do Good Stitches quilt blocks I have been making. Every month I make blocks as part of this charity Bee and I love it. I look forward to the first of the month when the new pattern is put up on our Flickr Group and I always eagerly make the blocks. I love being challenged to make things that I would not usually make in colour schemes I may not necessarily think to put together.

Twice a year I get to be the Queen and set the block and in June I choose this block and colour scheme for my month….

The block is from a free pattern by Clover and Violet which they originally put up as part of a Christmas quilt they were making. The colour tweaks I made changed how the finished block looks and made for a striking quilt top…

I love how the yellow strings make a grid pattern and the stars just pop. Each of my fellow Do Good Bee members made two blocks, so there is so much variety in the stars, which I LOVE.

One of my favorite bits about being Queen Bee is getting to see all the blocks as they come in and ohh and ahh over the fabric used (I may have a bit of stash envy!).

When these blocks came in I absolutely fell in love with the Barbar fabric one of my fellow quilters used…

I have not seen this fabric before and am now obsessed with getting my hands on some. It is so fabulous. This quilt top is now awaiting quilting and binding and then it will go out into the world to Do Good! I am Queen again in November and I have already started planning what block I am going to set.

1Aug2015

Modern Sampler Quilt

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

Today I wanted to share with you another one of the beautiful quilts members of my Quilt Guild made for our charity program.

This amazing Modern Sampler quilt was pieced using blocks that members of the Guild made a couple of years ago as part of our BOM program. One of our members, Michelle took a bag of blocks and whipped up this amazing top… using fun strips of solid colours to make the different sized blocks work.

I love the colour way… that purple and aqua in particular make me very happy.

Another of our fabulous members, Colleen Barnhardt of The Quilted Thistle then took the top and wove her magic all over it. Colleen has only been quilting on a long arm for under a year which is so hard to believe because she is so AMAZING!

She quilted the most fabulous array of patterns over the different blocks…

The quilting adds so much to this quilt…. and my photos do not do it justice…

And all around the border of the quilt, Colleen added a geometric pattern in variegated cotton that just adds the most perfect border and bought the quilt together.

Yesterday I dropped off this quilt, and 11 others (including Wonky Trees) to Camp Erin, a local camp for kids who dealing with the death of someone close to them. I am so proud that our Guild does such great work for such good causes.

31Jul2015

Not just one tree in the forest…

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

Today I am spending the day delivering the latest batch of Portland Modern Quilt Guild charity quilts to a couple of charities around town…. so over the next couple of days I would like to share some of the beauties that are being dropped off starting with…

Our wonderful wonky tree quilt. Now if you have been following me for a while you will have seen a version of this quilt last year, when we made our first wonky tree charity quilt… you can check out my original post for tips on making the blocks…

This quilt block has become an annual exercise and makes for such a fun Sew Day. Basically anything goes tree wise and this year was no different. We had differently shaped trees…

Really big trees…

And really small trees….

The forest is so varied and every one has a blast just making what ever type of tree they wanted… there is no right or wrong but most people kept within the 8 inch square guideline….

We used lots of our donated scraps, and I love this exercise in particular because it allows us to use up some of the browns and olive greens we have in our donated charity stash… colours that are not always easy to use in kids quilts.

I always throw in some bright greens to the mix to add a splash of vibrancy to the forest.

To finish it all off the amazing Nancy Stovall of Just Quilting, did an awesome job. She choose an all over pattern that hints at the wind blowing through the trees. I love it so much.

For the back of the quilt one of our fabulous volunteers, Betty, made a huge tree block….

..that was just perfect for the back. This quilt was truly a wonderful group effect… thanks goes out to everyone who played along and helped make this wonderful forest.

9Jan2015

A special QuiltCon reject

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

I finally got the opportunity this week to photograph the beautiful wonky star quilt that was made last year at my first PMQG Charity Sew Day.

I originally posted about making these blocks back in February last year and you can find the original post HERE. I really loved the quilt top but extra love it now that Rachel at 2nd Avenue Studios wove her quilting magic.

Rachel free motion quilted these wonderful wandering lines that fill the scrappy white space fabulous while also highlighting parts of all the blocks.

All over the quilt there are these little moments where the lines move around the fussy cutting…

…and around and through the stars. The quilting perfectly compliments the scrappy wonky offset stars.

This quilt is now in our Charity pool and will be used this year…and I am in the process of preparing for the January Charity Sew Day. Every month PMQG members meet at the wonderful Modern Domestic and make blocks and chat and hang out. Every month we make a quilt top together, all of them bright and fun and all of them destined to do good in the community. It is such a good thing.

17Oct2014

It was a Do Good kind of week…

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

This week I managed to finish up one of the Do Good Stitches quilt tops I have in progress. This quilt started with this wonderful block….

I found the paper piecing pattern at Freshly Pieced and fell in love. I set it as my block for August and then watched with delight as my fellow Hope Circle members sent in their blocks. A little bit of sewing and voila a quilt top was created…

I loved the subtle variations in colour that were added by other members. The deep orange adds such a pop and the soft quiet yellow gives the eye a resting place.

You may also have noticed some fun little sashing on the top. I love this touch, but it was not planned. When I set this block, I forgot that several of our Circle’s member had not done paper piecing before… and I had forgotten to give instructions on downloading the paper piecing pattern.

You see if you print a PDF straight from the website it prints out slightly smaller than standard. You need to download the PDF to your desktop/computer and then print from the download to get accurate sizing. Arkansa quilt detail 2

Also if you select the print dialogue box “print to fit” when you send the document to print it will also print out slightly smaller than needed. In the end the best thing to do is measure your pattern before you start sewing it, to make sure it is the correct size.

The four blocks that were slightly under size got a special border which added a wonderful pop of colour to the top.

So many times in my creative life I find little mistakes or hiccups make me think more creatively…make me rethink my original vision…force me to think outside the box. The end results have always be so much better than my original plan. This has been true with my painting, my film making and my quilting.

I am also linking up with Finish It up Friday over at Crazy Mom Quilts.