A special little quilt

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

Last night I managed to finish one of two little quilts I have been wanting to make for a while now. These quilts are special not just because of their lack of colour, but because of the thinking behind them.

This simple little quilt is made up of a variety of 3 inch squares of white and cream tone on tone fabrics. I was inspired to make this quilt after seeing the fabulous Molli Sparkle’s “No Value quilt“. It was a challenge to work with just white but it was great fun. I ended up using off white and cream to get some variation in the quilt, so the eye had something to follow.

So why tiny little white quilts… Christmas last year some friends of our suffered the heartache of having their son be still born. It is a heart ache I can not imagine, but one that a few people I know have suffered. There was nothing I could do at the time but cry, support and pray. Recently I was talking to some members in our Project Linus group who told me about the little white blankets that a group had been knitting and crocheting for some local hospitals. These tiny blankets are used to wrap a child in when it is presented to its parents to say goodbye. The parents can then take the blanket home as a remembrance of their child.

I do not knit but I thought that a tiny quilt would be just as useful. So I set about making two little quilts in remembrance of my friends and their son. As with all my quilts there is a splash of Mirror Ball and a splash of Pearl Bracelet fabric… and a huge dash of love.

I backed this quilt with a scrap of white fabric I had and a splash Mirror Ball and bound the quilt with Michael Miller’s Couture Cotton in Cream.

I have one more of these quilts to bind and then they are off to do their job of bringing comfort and support. There are a number of wonderful charities that delivery blankets/quilts to hospitals for this need, including Forever Warm in the USA, Sands in Australia, Sands in the UK and of course your local Project Linus chapter or Neonatal hospital.

On a much happier note, our friends who suffered such heartbreak last year have just had a beautiful, healthy baby girl. Life really is a wonderful roller coaster of a ride.

29Nov2013

No turkey here…just some Urban Chickens

Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilt patterns, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

After a day full of Thanksgiving turkey yesterday, I thought I would stick with the poultry theme, but shake it up a little. Somewhere in between baking tons and tons of pies this week I managed to finish my Urban Chicken Quilt.

This block is so fun and so easy to make… I set it as one of my Do.good.Stitches Bee blocks so you will be seeing another version on this site in the next month or so. My tutorial for making this block can be found here.

I really do love how easy this quilt block is. I think it will be my new “go to” block when I need to get a kids quilt done quickly. Though next time I think I will put some more prints into the quilt, not just tone on tones. I also want to try to make one just using solids. Oh I have too many ideas and not enough time.

For the quilting on this, I just went with straight lines, running either side of the ditch. At some point, as my FMQ gets better I would like to quilt one of these with “chickens”, that is triangles, all over it.

To back this quilt I used the last of my IKEA green and blue fabric. This fabric has been a great way to back my quilts and I am going to keep my eye out for more of it. The backing is one solid piece, but it looks like I have sewn together a pile of solid fat quarters.

The finishing touch is an electric blue binding… I seem to go through a lot of binding in electric blue for some reason. It is either that or someone/something is eating my blue binding.

So there she is…my first finished Urban Chicken quilt. I am now off to make myself a turkey sandwich… got to love Thanksgiving day leftovers.

22Nov2013

Tricky Triangles finally finished

Posted in Finished Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

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″

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″

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!