Square in Square fun – wip Wednesday

Posted in Quilt patterns, WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

This week I have been playing with the “square in square” quilt block (also known as a diamond in a square block). I stumbled across the pattern on the weekend and decided that I had to see what I could do with it. The first experiment is with colour – navy, emerald and pink/purple.

I am excited about how this quilt is coming together. The colours work well together and the pattern allows me to use those scraps I love so much! To make the square in square blocks I used the paper piecing pattern below. There is some good instructions on how to make this block using traditional piecing on the web, including some great instructions from Why not Sew? which you can find here.

I also used this simple pattern this week to start a 1001 Peeps quilt. I have a stash of Lizzy House fabric including quite a collection of her Arabian Nights themed fabric. I have used little bits and pieces here and there but I wanted to use one of the lines colorways to make a quilt for Project Linus. It is such fabulous kids fabric.

This pattern makes it easy to use fussy cut bits and pieces. I love how it really frames the wonderful prints in this range. I am half way through making these blocks and the quilt is coming together so quickly. I have used a few prints that are not from the line including some tone on tone fabrics and a couple of prints from other Lizzy House lines. Too much fun.

I am now off to buy a new ironing board. We somehow managed to put a hole in ours which is making ironing and quilting a little more challenging than it should be!

1Apr2013

Paper Piecing Monday with a twist

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday, Quilt patterns by wombatquilts

Today’s paper piecing block is a tiny bit different. At last month’s Portland Modern Quilting Guild we were given a sampling of Michael Miller’s fabulous new Neon range. It was love at first sight. The fabric came with the challenge to make a 12 1/2 block or a sewn item out of just the Neon line and Couture cotton bits we were given. After pre-washing the solid fabrics I lay out my Neon bits and played. I do not usually wash my fabric before I use it, but the intensity of the dye to get the neon colours means that pre-washing is a necessity for the solids in this line.

After lots of arranging and re-arranging I came up with this block.

The pattern is the Connecticut star from Carol Doak’s “50 Fabulous Paper Pieced Stars” (my favorite book at the moment but I promise I will move on soon!). I played with the pattern in the book a little, to get the effect I wanted. I am relishing the freedom that these paper piecing patterns encourage.

I LOVE THIS BLOCK!

I have such fond memories of the 1980’s, they were pretty good years for me, bad hair and questionable dress sense aside. I swear I had a shirt back then that was in the same fabric as the center part of the star!

I had so much fun with this fabric line that I just ordered more Neon from Fabric.com. Please don’t tell my husband!

25Mar2013

Paper Piecing Monday

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday, Quilt patterns by wombatquilts

For this weeks block I present Carol Doak’s “Montana Star”, another fabulous pattern from her book “50 Fabulous Paper Pieced Stars“. Yes I am addicted. Yes I should move on, but when there are such great patterns to work with it is hard.

This block is a nice simple pattern with just 56 pieces that make up the eight parts to the block.

Making this block was not without its “issues”, though. I may have had a slip of concentration during construction – I am not sure if I can still blame jet lag. The result was this interesting block section and a lot of unpicking…

I maybe onto something with this mistake….it could make for an interesting quilt. I will however, leave experimenting with this for another time.

18Mar2013

Paper Piecing Monday part….

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

Okay I am loosing count of how many Paper Piecing Monday’s I have done (could be jet lag!). It does not seem to matter too much…. the more the merrier right. So this week I mixed up the patterns again from Carol Doak’s 50 Fabulous Paper Pieced Stars to make this.

I went back to scrappy this week, using part of the Oklahoma block and part of the Ohio block from the book. The block took 92 pieces, some of them very small. It was a great way to use up more bits and pieces I had collected.

I am not looking forward to pulling the paper pattern off this star, but that is the price you pay for paper piecing accuracy.

4Mar2013

Paper Piecing Monday

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday, Quilt patterns by wombatquilts

Back again for another Monday of paper fun. I worked again this week from 50 Fabulous Paper Piecing Stars but shook it up a bit. In the front of the book the author outlines how to make the 50 patterns in the book go a little further, by using two different patterns to make one block. Here is the results of my first experiment.

This star uses one half of the Utah star and one half of the Nebraska star, to make a fabulous new star using just 52 pieces to make. I did go less scrappy this time – keeping the attention on the pattern and not the individual block pieces.

I am still not sure if these pointy stars will fit in with the compass stars I have already made but I am having such fun making them all. So see you next week for the next installment.