Lost Geese Quilt top finished

This week I managed to get my “Shell logo” inspired flying geese quilt top finished.  By the time I had finished laying out this quilt top it had earned the name “Lost Geese”, can you guess why?

modern scrap flying geese quilt

Yep is it a little crazy… but kind of fun.  Lots of novelty fabric and fun stuff to make the eyes really explore the madness.

lost geese quilt detail cu

I had a lot of fun making the “geese” go all over the place. I love the lack of pattern or rhythm to the piecing (though it frustrated my husband a little).  Too really throw things into disarray I added a smattering of yellow triangles on a red background.  Chaos rules!

modern flying geese scrap quilt

I paper pieced these blocks as I love to have sharp clear triangles in my flying geese and paper piecing is the only way I personally can get that precision. My original post has a paper piecing pattern you can grab if you are interested in trying some geese.

back lit quilt detail

This top has been added to the pile that need basting.  I am going to see if I can convince my hubby to help me again this weekend to baste a quilt or two.

Quilts for kids

I can not believe that we are already 13 days into September… this month is going way to fast for me.  I have Bee blocks to do and quilts to finish and not a sewing elf in sight.  Augh!

As September is slipping away I bustled this week to get a couple more quilts finished for the 100 Quilts for Kids project.  I raided my pile of unfinished/nearly finished quilts and found two that I could easily complete without too much sweat, and that would be kid suitable.

Scrap spiderweb quilt

The first quilt is my scrappy spiderweb quilt, which has been sitting waiting to be completed for over a year.

spiderweb quilt detail 2

I really put a dent in my scrap pile with this little beauty.  Lots and lots of different fabrics which means lots of “I spy” potential.  It is a really fun quilt.

spiderweb closeup

The other quilt I finished this week is a quick and easy wonky star quilt.  I must admit wonky stars are my all time favorite “go to” quilt if I have to get something done in a hurry.

easy kids quilt

For this quilt I used a darling fussy cut novelty fabric for the center piece and then bright scraps for the star points.  Most of these scrap triangles were left over from my “sparkle punch” wonky star quilt.

wonky star quilt detail

To back the quilt I used some bigger pieces from the same fabric range by Jone Hallmark.

wonky star quilt back

Both these quilts side by side you can see which one I spent days and days making and which one was done in a few hours.  In the end both will be loved and treasured in equal measure, I hope.

Yummy Quilt finished

The weather in Portland has finally turned, and the rain and cold of the last two days has spurred me onto finish my Yummy Charity Quilt.  I do struggle in summer to finish quilts, partly because the sun beckons me out to play and partly because it is too hot to be working under/over/on a quilt.  Here is what my rain inspired burst of activity produced…

Easy modern kids quilt

This quilt started life as 20 packets of 2 1/2 inch squares of  “Happy Mochi YumYum” and some Kona “Snow”.  You can read/see more about its humble beginnings in my original post.

Yummy quilt detail

I had fun randomly placing the squares and messing up the one white one print pattern.  I like how the finished quilt feels a little off kilter.

Yummy quilt detail 2

To back the quilt I used the few remaining blocks and spare squares of fabric.  The back is random but kind of fun.

Yummy quilt back

I kept the quilting simple – I am still only able to manage straight lines at the moment, and bound the quilt in a fun green leaf print I had in my stash.  A dislocated thumb makes basting, quilting and binding in particular hard work.

quilt binding

The finished quilt is part of the Hopes and Dreams Quilt Challenge for ALS, which the Portland Modern Quilt Guild is supporting. If you are interested you can find out more about the Challenge here.

Now it is back to enjoying the rain…

Another log cabin done and dusted…

I managed to get my Blush log cabin quilted and bound this week.  I am so thrilled with how this quilt finished up and can not wait to see how it washes.

scrap log cabin quilt

I quilted Blush using the diagonal lines of the log cabin block as a guide.   I love how the how this simple quilting adds extra interest to the log cabin.

blush quilting detail

I must admit I am looking forward to trying some of the free-motion techniques I learned last week at the PMQG Meet Up, but I have a few weeks before my wrist is up for the challenge.  So the next few quilts will involve straight lines in some shape or form and in the meantime I will do my free-motion exercises in my new graph paper note-book.  As instructed by Rachel (of 2nd Ave Studios) I will be using pen only for the doodling. No erasing.

blush quilt detail 2

I found the perfect fabric piece in my stash for the back of this quilt – the Weekend by Erin Morris fabric worked perfectly with a little bit of pink supporting fabric.

blush quilt back

The final touch was a solid binding in Magenta which just bought the whole quilt together.

quilt bindingNow I am just a few stitches away from finishing my Yummy quilt so it is back to the sewing machine.

I am linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts and TGIFF.

Star String quilt top finished

I am so thrilled to have finally finished my star string quilt top… and extra thrilled that it turned out exactly like I pictured it.  So without further ado, here she is in all her scrappy wonderfulness…

free quilt pattern modern star

I must admit my strong feelings about this quilt maybe effected slightly because I designed the quilt block.  You can find the free paper piecing pattern and details about my  inspirations here on the original post.

quilt top detail

I had a lot of fun making this quilt slowly, piece by piece.  Using colour pencils and paper I worked out each square in advance.

cross block wip

The central stars are made from lots of little bits from my scrap pile.  The black and white fabrics were a little bit of scrap pile and a lot of stash cutting.

star string block close up

I wanted bright colours for the stars and mainly worked with red, yellow, orange, blue, green and purple with a smattering of apricot, fuchsia and citron.

star string quilt detailThe finished quilt top is 62 inches square – five blocks across five blocks down.  This of course meant there was a lot of paper to pull off the back.

paper piecing pile

I am now off to vacuum up the paper and thread pieces that are littered all over our living room floor, before my husband comes home!