Paper Piecing Monday’s Hodge Podge sampler…

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

For a month or so I have been thinking about what I wanted to do for the next Paper Piecing Monday series, and I finally decided I wanted to do a sampler quilt. Now there are lots of different sampler quilts/patterns/books out there, The Farmers Wife, Dear Jane, the Women of the Bible as well as more modern samplers like Tula Pink’s 100 City Sampler and Elizabeth Hartman’s Patchwork City.

I looked at all my options and made two key decisions… I wanted to got traditional and I did not want to do all the half square triangles that are involved in most of the Farmers Wife/Dear Jane etc. blocks. So I pulled out some of the reference books I have and trawled through the online copy of the Ladies Art Company Quilt Pattern Book of 1898 (you can check it out here).

So my new adventure will be mainly paper pieced interpretations of very traditional blocks…where I can I will give you the name or names the block goes by as well as any different layouts for the block pieces…with a few of these traditional blocks different fabric placement gives you a completely different block and block name. All the blocks will all be 6 inches square finished.

So to start I give you my version of the Arkansas Snowflake…

You can find the free paper pieced pattern for this block here….Arkansas snowflake pattern.

I will be posting more blocks throughout the coming weeks…and not just on Mondays… so stay tuned.

31Aug2015

Some more mini fun for Paper Piecing Monday

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

A couple of months ago I signed up for another mini quilt swap, this time for Heather Ross fabric… it was another opportunity to make a fun little quilt and I could not resist.

When I pulled out my Heather Ross stash I knew I wanted a quilt block that allowed me to do some serious fussy cutting…and after some umming and ahhing I decided on a simple triangle block.

These blocks are 2 1/2 inches square and are the perfect size to fit some of the darling illustrations on the fabric…

I made each block individually, so that I could play with layout and colour placement… and turn one block on its side….

But for the free pattern for this mini quilt, I included a two triangle block to make things a little quicker and easier, if you know you layout before you start. You can find the free pattern PDF here….Triangle mini quilt pattern

I was away when the Schnitzel and Boo Mini Quilt swap sign ups were on… but with 1008 people signed up to play there is going to be a lot of mini quilt activity over the next couple of months on Instagram, Flickr and blogs. I love it.

28Aug2015

Continuing my Lizzy House infatuation…

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

Last week I managed to finish up my Constellation quilt, which is currently winging its way to its new home in Indiana.

I started this quilt a while ago, after I got my hands on some treasured pieces of Lizzy House’s Constellation line. I have been a big fan of Ms. Houses for a while now…she designs the most fun novelty fabric. I love her bright colour choices and graphic illustrations… and I do not just use them in my charity quilts for kids, I try to sneak Pearl Bracelets into nearly every quilt I make!

I loved the blues and touch of purple of this line and it was so easy to put this quilt together using just the Constellation fabric line, some Pearl Braceletss and a few supporting solids.

I paper pieced the six-inch cross blocks… you can find the free pattern here.

To quilt this baby up I just used my walking foot and followed the lines of the crosses. I love how the quilting echoes the crosses, while adding a nice grid pattern to the quilt.

I wanted some denser quilting on this quilt, as it is for my new nephew, Tobias…and I knew from the experience of his big brother’s quilt, that this quilt needed to be able to stand up to pretty constant washing and hardy wear and tear.

For the back of the quilt I used three different Lizzy House prints…two of which are from her recent Natural History range. These fabrics just worked perfectly with the front… and I could not resist sneaking this marvelous gem print into the quilt.

Now I must warn you this is only one of several Lizzy House quilts I have been working on. I am slightly addicted to Lizzy’s fabrics and am eagerly awaiting her new line, A lovely Hunt, in September… it has unicorns in it!

Quilt Details:

Name: Constellation Crosses
Pattern: Paper Pieced cross blocks
Fabric: Lizzy House Constellations
Finished size: 36 x 42 inches

24Aug2015

A growing EPP obsession…

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

Over the last couple of weeks I have been gallivanting to a wedding in Southern California, traipsing around Disneyland and teaching a bunch of wonderful 8 to 10 years old sew doll clothes. It has been fun and action packed, but there has been only a sprinkling of quilting… and all of it has been English paper piecing.

My go to travel project has become my new obsession… For the California trip I packed my mini Liberty dresden kit…

… I managed to get quite a few dresdens blades done while sitting on the plane or by the pool…

… I have become a little obsessed with finding little scraps of Liberty to add to this project…

… and I really do mean mini scraps. I can get two blades easily from a 2 1/2 inch square!

My other ongoing summer travel project, my hexagon pelt, has gone with me to games nights, picnics and camping….

I grab this kit regularly when we are heading ona long drive or out to events… just in case I get time to baste a few hexies….

I also have just started basting some mini Cotton and Steel hexies. I had so many little scraps of fabric left over after making a couple of Cotton and Steel mini quilts for the swap (check out the post here to see two of them) that could not got to waste so…

The C+S hexagons were made from scraps that were too small for my main hexagon pelt (main pelt hexie size is 1 inch)…

Now three EPP projects on the go at the same time might seem excessive, but I am sure I can handle a couple more…. you see, last week for my birthday I got these books…

..and the July copy of Love Patchwork and Quilting which had this free gift with it…

…plus I also discovered that you can use the EQ7 quilting program to print out quilt blocks in segments….. I think my obsession with hand work may have only just started…