Kelly’s Quilt in the spotlight…

In the continuing showcase of Portland Modern Quilt Guild’s charity quilts, today’s quilt is Kelly’s Quilt.

This bright, fun, scrappy improv quilt was made at our Guild’s March Charity Sew Day. During the course of the day the group took a huge box of bright, kid friendly scraps and a handful of stray orphan blocks cut them up and turned it all into a pile of 12 inch blocks.

The quilt got its name during the Sew Day when this block went up on the design wall…

Joy, one of our members commented that the girl in this block looked liked one of my fellow Board members from last year, Kelly. Everyone agreed and the quilt was then referred to all day as Kelly’s quilt.

In the spirit of improv and anything goes, the top grew into a loud riot of novelty print fun…

When it came time to quilting this top, it fell, of course to none other than its name sake, Kelly Cole of Blue Bird Sews. As soon as she knew the quilt was named after her, Kelly felt she had to quilt it.

And boy did she quilt it. Kelly did a wonderful job free motion quilting a different pattern into each block…

The end result is one of the most fun games of eye spy ever in a quilt. I love the riot of colour and texture of this quilt. You know it is going to make some kid extremely happy.

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.

13Feb2015

Scrap busting quilt…

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

This morning I managed to finish up the improv baby quilt I started last week.

I started making blocks last week as a way to take a break from doing old WIP’s (see my original post about the process) and found myself making blocks here and there as I worked on other things.

The blocks are all random improv and used up quite a nice selection of my low volume and pastel scrap stash.

There are lots of novelty prints with enough bits and pieces to play a good game of I spy (aka eye spy). But for me the most fun of this whole process was the quilting. If you follow this blog you know I am determined this year to get better at free motion quilting and this week I got some help.

Last Friday I took delivery of a wonderful Bernina 550, which I have on loan to play with and oh what a difference a good machine makes. When it came to quilting this baby up, I was excited to attach the free motion foot and stitch regulator and really play.

Now the quilting is far from perfect but it is okay and so much better than anything I have free motioned before…. and most importantly it was great fun to do. I just free motioned squares and I am now chomping at the bit to try some new things. I have dusted off my Angela Waters books and bought Christina Cameli’s new book “Step by Step Free Motion Quilting” and I am ready to get serious about this quilting thing.

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.

19Sep2014

100 Quilts for Kids

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

This week I finally finished another quilt… I mean completely finished – quilting and binding and all. I have been pumping out the blocks and tops but have been a little lacking on finishes… until now. So without further ado here is my Les Monsieur quilt…

This was a fast and fun quilt to put together, I made the top in February in very little time (see my original post) but it spent months sitting in the “must finish” pile. For this quilt, I started with a handful of the prints from Michael Miller’s fabulous Les Monsieur line and some coordinating fabrics from my stash.

I then spent a few hours making log cabin blocks, all 9 1/2 inches square but with random sized logs/sashing. What I love about this type of quilt top is that it is a great way to highlight a fun novelty print line…and I always start by cutting out blocks of just the prints (giving you instantly 3 – 4 blocks to start).

Then I fussy cut some of the novelty prints for the center of the blocks and go to work. It is just fun putting everything together, of course making sure that there is some lights (in this case white) and darks (navy blue and a touch of brown).

If there are any of the focus prints left over I tend to incorporate them into the back of the quilt.

This quilt was delivered yesterday to Project Linus and is one of my entries into this years 100 Quilts for Kids drive.

For the last couple of years I have been a part of the 100 Quilts for Kids drive that Katie Blakesley of SwimBikeQuilt set up. The idea is simple, for the months of August and September you are encouraged to make a quilt and donate it to a child/teen in your own community.

This year the quilt drive is being hosted by Quilts in the Queue and there are some beautiful quilts that have already been donated …. oh did I mention you can also win some lovely prizes by donating a quilt and then linking a photo to the 100 Quilts for Kids site?