Some Quilt Talk and a giveaway…

Posted in Other fun stuff by wombatquilts

I have been waiting for this day for what seems like ages…. today, this day, when I get to take part in the Blog Hop for my friend Sam Hunter’s new book, Quilt Talk.

I first heard of Sam through her “We Are Sew Worth It” campaign, which was eye opening for me. Sam started a serious conversation about the value of our work, a quilter’s work, as artists, which continues to resonate with me.

About 6 months later I was thrilled to hear that Sam had moved to Portland and joined the Portland Modern Quilt Guild. The first time I met her I knew I had found a kindred spirit- she was straight talking, feisty, talented and hilarious (if you want to know what Sam’s sense of humor is like take a closer look at the buckets on the cover of her new book!)

You can imagine my excitement when I found out Sam was doing a paper piecing book… Quilt Talk is designed around a paper pieced font, which includes a full alphabet with letters, numbers, special characters and accents There is also a dozen lovely projects that you can customize with your own words… my fave is this Star Wars inspired beauty (yes I am a geek)…

As part of the Blog Hop Sam has given each Hop host the paper pieced pattern for a particular word and a link on how to use them to make the buckets on the cover of her book. My word is appropriately…

DOWNLOAD THE HEXIES PATTERN HERE….

You can collect the full set of patterns by visiting the other Blog Hop hosts…

Thursday, October 2 – PURPLE – Megan Dougherty, The Bitchy Stitcher
Friday, October 3 – BROWN – Carrie Bloomston, Such Designs
Monday, October 6 – RED – Kim Niedzwiecki, My GoGo Life
Tuesday, October 7 – TEAL – Flaun Cline, I Plead Quilty
Wednesday, October 8 – WHITE – Molli Sparkles
Thursdays, October 9 – HEXIES – Cath Hall, Wombat Quilts
Friday, October 10 – PINK – Ebony Love, LoveBug Studios
Monday, October 13 – GREEN – Rose Hughes
Tuesday, October 14 – BLUE – Sarah Fielke
Wednesday, October 15 – GRAY – Maddie Kertay, The BadAss Quilter’s Society
Thursday, October 16 – BLACK – Cheryl Sleboda
Friday, October 17 – YELLOW – Victoria Findlay Wolfe
Monday, October 20 – ORANGE (but of course!) – Sam Hunter, Hunter’s Design Studio

Sam has also kindly given me a copy of the book to give away to one lucky reader… so if you would like to win a hard copy of this fabulous book just leave a comment, telling me what your favorite colour is… a random winner will be drawn on Sunday night (12th October) and announced during Paper Piecing Monday’s post.

22Sep2014

Kitty Corner Paper Piecing Monday

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

For today’s paper piecing Monday I present the kitty corner block….

And yes that is a kitty in the center of the Kitty Corner… I could not resist. The pattern is another simple square nine patch block, have I mentioned I am obsessed?

To make this block all you need is the 4 1/2 inch simple square pattern (WQ Simple square block) and the Kitty corner component.

I was a little stuck on putting a kitty in the block, so my alternative block layout is not too much different…

But I think there are more exciting possibilities if you are not cat or fussy cut focused. I would love to see a block with no white space – with a pattern fabric as the background. Maybe if I get time….

12Sep2014

Starry Night… the big reveal

Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilts by wombatquilts

Okay I finally managed to wrangle the Starry Night quilt top enough to get some photos. I must admit there are a few strangling pieces of paper still attached to the back…

but I promised a reveal today so here goes…

As you know, if you have followed this quilts progress, I did not have a plan of how to put this together. I just went with the flow, putting pieces up on the design wall and jigsawing the blocks into a top (a technical maneuver I do not want to attempt again!).

My design wall was too small for it, so I had pieces hanging off the wall and laying on the floor….

My first step was to arrange the star blocks in a rough layout that made sure that they were as evenly distributed and as balanced as I could get them.

I carefully placed the bigger stars around the quilt making sure that the fractured stars were separated as well as the ringed stars. I wanted the eye to move around the top exploring and I felt this was the best way to do it.